Vince Smurro, Yoshi Mori and Maestas combined
for 60.00 on that event, which helped tremendously when Ruggeri landed low on a double front. That
would be the Illini’s final flub.
With Oklahoma and Illinois competing on opposite ends of the arena, both also experienced a
reverse in their mojos. As Oklahoma was hitting
mostly stock routines on p-bars, Illinois was gaining
ground with ambitious pommel horse sets. Chad
Mason was tops with 15. 30, showing a full kehre
and flair handstand pirouette dismount. Cole Smith,
Mori and Maestas (four handstand elements) all
topped 15.00, while only Danny Berardini ( 15.05)
and Dalton ( 15. 50) reached that mark on parallels.
Heading to high bar in the final rotation, OU still
had a .90 lead. But Illinois had two very strong ring-men in Maestas and Anthony Sacramento, and a
less risky event on which to finish. Both factors
played a part in the outcome.
Unfortunately for the Sooners, they saved their
worst for last. (It also didn’t help that Jacoby Rubin
was out of the lineup with mono.) Ethan Jose
opened with a steady 14.00, but the next four routines all fell under that mark. In the second-to-last
slot, freshman standout Dylan Akers shot his Take-moto-half just shy of vertical
and had to ad lib the rest of the
way ( 13.80). And with Illinois
rocking rings, Oklahoma’s fate
was sealed before Dalton had a
chance to save the day. “I told
him, ‘You know, we’re down,
and no matter what you do,
we’ll probably still be second,
but you can make it close,’”
Williams said.
Even with yet another great
set from Dalton, who scored
15. 40 and sealed the all-around
win, the final results were not
close at all. Sacramento (perfect
Malteses and layout full-out dismount) and Maestas had finished off a 59.45 rings effort
that pushed Illinois comfortably into first.
“Just the last two events are the toughest for us,”
Dalton told IG. “We don’t have the high start values
on those, so we knew we were going to be down a
little bit … but we were still giving it everything we
could and it just wasn’t enough.”
Before the final team scores were posted,
Williams walked across the arena to congratulate
Spring, who was in the midst of a hugfest near the
Illinois rings bench. “I’m so proud of all of them,”
Spring said of his team. “And obviously our floor
and pommel team were stepping up in an epic way
towards the end of the meet when we knew we
needed to go really big on pommel horse. And obvi-
ously our ring guys finished it off.”
Despite his less-than-ideal performance, Ruggeri
was all smiles afterward. “I wasn’t doing my job, but
Junior Jake Dalton (top) went six-for-six to
win the all-around and lead Oklahoma to
second place (right). Senior tri-captain
Patrick Piscitelli (inset) did three events
for the Sooners.
