It wasn’t the ending they were looking for, but the Sooners of the OU men’s gymnastics team finished out their season with a third-place finish in the NCAA Championships on Friday night.

The Sooners (22-4) posted a score of 357.050 to finish behind national champion Michigan (360.500) and No. 1 Stanford (359.800) in the final meet of the 2010 season.

The conclusion to OU’s season played out all too similar to last year’s competition.

The second-ranked Sooners entered the final rotation in second place, trailing the Cardinal by just five-hundreds of a point (300.350-300.300) with Michigan holding down third (297.400).

Unfortunately for OU, the Wolverines ended the night on their highest scoring event, vault.

The team from Ann Arbor, Mich., would put up a total of 62.700 on the apparatus to surge ahead of both Stanford and OU, as the Cardinal finished on rings (59.450) and the Sooners on high bar (56.750).

Last season, the Sooners entered the final rotation trailing Stanford before falling to third behind Michigan after the final performance of the night.

Competition was delayed several times throughout the evening to fix a broken ring after a gymnast from the Fighting Illini team fell on the apparatus.

Fortunately, the Illinois gymnast was able to walk off on his own power.

The replacement ring caused numerous problems as several gymnasts slipped off, including junior Steven Legendre and freshman Alex Naddour.

The two were allowed to perform again at the end of the night to make up for the apparatus problem.

Legendre, the defending all-around champion, would post a new score of 14.350, but could not catch up to Michigan’s Chris Cameron in the individuals.

Cameron would win the individual all-around title, while Legendre finished in second this time around.

Naddour deferred the opportunity to compete again and finished seventh in the all-around.

Freshman teammate Jacob Dalton was close behind with an eighth-place finish overall.

Dalton (floor, vault), Naddour (pommel), Legendre (floor, vault), redshirt junior Ian Jackson (vault), freshman Jeremy Adams (pommel) and senior Corey English (pommel, parallel bars) will compete tonight in the individual event championships to close out the meet.

Each competitor in Saturday’s events will be crowned an All-American as only the top eight scorers on each apparatus will perform in the individual finals.

The final night of the 2010 NCAA Championships is slated for a 7 p.m. start inside the Holleder Center, located on the campus of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.