California Golden Bears Athletics
Saturday, January 21
Burnham Pavilion-Stanford, Calif.
7:00 PM
California
398.850
at
Stanford Open
The Bears finished second at the Stanford Open (Photo: Peter Fukumae)
Photo by: Peter Fukumae
No. 9 Bears Finish Second at Stanford Open
1/21/2017 9:32 PM | Men's Gymnastics
BERKELEY – Highlighted by improved individual scores, California rallied to a second-place finish at the Stanford Open on Saturday tallying a 398.850 in its second meet of 2017.
The Golden Bears outlasted the No. 19 Washington Huskies (375.650), but were unable to edge host team and second-ranked Stanford (423.600) for consecutive weekends.
A tremendous improvement on still rings spurred the Bears performance during their second rotation. Led by freshman Anton Vorona and senior Michael Diliberto with a pair of 13.900s, Cal totaled 68.000 on the apparatus, a significant improvement from the 65.400 in Berkeley on Sunday. Vorona added nearly one point to his previous 12.950 while Diliberto demolished his previous 11.800. Aleksandrov notched a 13.850, up from 13.200, while Bailey Chang recorded a 13.750 in his season debut. Gharibyan and Sano each earned 13.400, which was an improvement from Gharibyan's 13.250 and matched Sano's total from a week ago.
The top apparatus of the night for the Blue and Gold was the vault for the second meet in a row with a cumulative score of 69.550, just shy of the 70.200 in last week's performance. Gharibyan led the way for the Bears with a 14.250, followed by Nathaniel Ramil's 14.150.
Aaron Mah led on parallel bars with a 13.650 as the team just edged its previous performance totaling 66.650 on the event up from 66.300. Mah, a sophomore, surpassed his 12.550 and was followed by Diliberto with a 13.600 on Saturday.
Pommel horse proved to be a challenge again for the Bears after recording 63.200 their lowest event score on Saturday and at their home opener a week ago where they earned a 64.200. Mah led with a 13.450.
"Tonight was a very tough meet for us because we didn't have a great start on pommel horse. We had a lot of mistakes. We really had to try to figure out how to get back in this meet. I thought we did a good job on rings and bringing it back. On vault, we had a couple of new guys in the lineup, but we still had a couple of mistakes there. We were not finding our way just yet and our lineups were different," said head coach Brett McClure.
"I thought we did well on high bar, other than we had Capri (Sano) fall of, but we had five other guys hit solid. I think we ran out of gas on floor exercise - we weren't able to bring the energy on the last event. The slow start and poor finish gives us a lot to work on in the next week."
The Bears totaled a 66.250 on the high bar and a 64.400 on floor led by Aleksandrov on both apparatuses with a 13.800 and 13.350, respectively.
Aleksandrov finished fourth in the all-around competition with a 79.500 behind Stanford competitors who took the top three spots. He finished ahead of a pair of Huskies.
The Bears head to So Cal for their first quad of the year to face host team and 20th-ranked SC United, No. 14 Arizona State and No. 18 Temple in the SC United Open in Los Angeles.
For more information on Cal men's gymnastics follow the team on Twitter and Instagram @CalMensGym and like the Cal Men's Gym page on Facebook.
The Golden Bears outlasted the No. 19 Washington Huskies (375.650), but were unable to edge host team and second-ranked Stanford (423.600) for consecutive weekends.
A tremendous improvement on still rings spurred the Bears performance during their second rotation. Led by freshman Anton Vorona and senior Michael Diliberto with a pair of 13.900s, Cal totaled 68.000 on the apparatus, a significant improvement from the 65.400 in Berkeley on Sunday. Vorona added nearly one point to his previous 12.950 while Diliberto demolished his previous 11.800. Aleksandrov notched a 13.850, up from 13.200, while Bailey Chang recorded a 13.750 in his season debut. Gharibyan and Sano each earned 13.400, which was an improvement from Gharibyan's 13.250 and matched Sano's total from a week ago.
The top apparatus of the night for the Blue and Gold was the vault for the second meet in a row with a cumulative score of 69.550, just shy of the 70.200 in last week's performance. Gharibyan led the way for the Bears with a 14.250, followed by Nathaniel Ramil's 14.150.
Aaron Mah led on parallel bars with a 13.650 as the team just edged its previous performance totaling 66.650 on the event up from 66.300. Mah, a sophomore, surpassed his 12.550 and was followed by Diliberto with a 13.600 on Saturday.
Pommel horse proved to be a challenge again for the Bears after recording 63.200 their lowest event score on Saturday and at their home opener a week ago where they earned a 64.200. Mah led with a 13.450.
"Tonight was a very tough meet for us because we didn't have a great start on pommel horse. We had a lot of mistakes. We really had to try to figure out how to get back in this meet. I thought we did a good job on rings and bringing it back. On vault, we had a couple of new guys in the lineup, but we still had a couple of mistakes there. We were not finding our way just yet and our lineups were different," said head coach Brett McClure.
"I thought we did well on high bar, other than we had Capri (Sano) fall of, but we had five other guys hit solid. I think we ran out of gas on floor exercise - we weren't able to bring the energy on the last event. The slow start and poor finish gives us a lot to work on in the next week."
The Bears totaled a 66.250 on the high bar and a 64.400 on floor led by Aleksandrov on both apparatuses with a 13.800 and 13.350, respectively.
Aleksandrov finished fourth in the all-around competition with a 79.500 behind Stanford competitors who took the top three spots. He finished ahead of a pair of Huskies.
The Bears head to So Cal for their first quad of the year to face host team and 20th-ranked SC United, No. 14 Arizona State and No. 18 Temple in the SC United Open in Los Angeles.
For more information on Cal men's gymnastics follow the team on Twitter and Instagram @CalMensGym and like the Cal Men's Gym page on Facebook.
Players Mentioned
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