Gymnasts to rock Cliff Keen

The Michigan men's gymnastics team hosts its first dual meet of the season Friday when Ohio State and Illinois visit Cliff Keen Arena for the BMG Showdown.

The music company is sponsoring the event and giving away free CDs to the first 1,000 people in attendance. No need to worry, word is there won't be any of those annoying cards sent to those receiving the free CDs and you won't have any responsibility to buy more CDs.

With that said, the meet should be a very interesting matchup of some of the best gymnastics teams in the country. Ohio State is ranked third, Michigan fourth, and Illinois sixth in the latest poll.

The teams have already faced off against each other, battling two weeks ago at the Windy City Open in Chicago. At that meet, the Buckeyes beat the Wolverines and Illini by a slim margin. Ohio State finished second and Michigan was third, less than a point behind. Illinois was fourth, less than a point behind Michigan.

Although the Wolverines recently dominated Illinois-Chicago, this meet should prove to be much tougher. Possibly Michigan's biggest weakness is its lack of experience, something that this weekend's opponents have a lot of.

Ohio State is led by five seniors, including Doug Stibel. Stibel is one of the country's top all-around competitors and a member of this year's United States Goodwill Games team. He helped the Buckeyes finish sixth nationally last year and has raised expectations in Columbus this year.

Illinois advanced to the championship finals last year and finished third nationally. Many observers think the Illini could be even tougher this year.

They return all but three of the members from last year's team, and now have the experience of competing in nationals. With their No. 6 ranking, they are one of the top contenders for a national title.

The Fighting Illini are led by junior Travis Romagnoli. Last year Romagnoli won two national championships, one in vault, and the other in the all-around competition.

Michigan will try to counter its highly regarded opponents with an injured squad that is being led by a youth movement.

Freshmen Daniel Diaz-Luong and Scott Vetere have led the Wolverines in their first two competitions this year. Diaz-Luong has edged Vetere in the all-around in both meets so far this year, but both have been extremely close. They both need to continue their success if the Wolverines hope to earn victory on Friday.

Returning to aid the freshmen will be sophomore Justin Toman. Toman, one of the team captains, was limited to only three events against Illinois-Chicago. He was impressive in the three events that he performed in though, earning a first in the high bar with a career-best performance. His other two events, parallel bars and pommel horse, earned him two second-place finishes.

Michigan coach Kurt Golder was particularly impressed with Toman for his performance last weekend because of the injury and the difficulty that he had added into his routines for the meet.

Toman being healthy may be the added element that the Wolverines need to overcome the Buckeyes. When they met the first time this year, Toman was injured before the meet started,and was not at full strength.

Michigan should still be missing five members of the team to injury though; Bryan Pascoe, Jesse Coleman, Tim Dehr, Kevin Roulston and Brad Kenna. The injuries leave the Wolverines with only 10 competing gymansts, limiting the team's capabilities.

"I think that everyone is really stepping up because of it(the injuries)," Golder said, after seeing his team perform against Illinois-Chicago.

Golder's goals for the Big Ten was to finish in the top three. As of right now, they are in the third position in the Big Ten. A win over Ohio State would move the young team into second place in the Big Ten and probably into the top three in the country.

Michigan will try to keep rocking and rolling on Friday at the BMG Showcase, and see if they can keep up their early season success.

01-27-99