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Sunday, February 12, 2012

OU spoils Senior Day festivities for No. 5 Ohio State with road win

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Freshman Jeremy Adams holds his position on the parallel bars Feb. 27 during an OU men's gymnastics home meet in McCasland Field House.

The second-ranked OU men’s gymnastics team earned its seventh top-10 victory of the season Saturday by defeating No. 5 Ohio State inside St. John Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

After absorbing their first loss of the season last weekend, the Sooners (10-1, 4-1 MPSF) took the Buckeyes’ best shot to grab a 359.250-354.900 win.

Junior Steven Legendre and the Sooners spoiled the Senior Day festivities of Ohio State (7-6, 3-3 Big Ten) as OU managed to win despite the Buckeyes posting a season-high team score.

Legendre claimed his third-straight all-around title with a score of 89.500, matching freshman teammate Jacob Dalton for the most on the team this year.

An OU gymnast has claimed the all-around title in each of the seven meets the Sooners have competed in as Legendre and Dalton have three apiece, with redshirt junior Ian Jackson holding the other.

Legendre also had a part in OU’s two other individual honors as he took home the title on vault (16.050), and a share of the floor exercise title with Dalton (16.000).

As a team, the Sooners won four of the six team event titles on the day with wins on floor (62.550), vault (63.950), parallel bars (58.200) and high bar (57.550).

In beating the Buckeyes, OU also improved its mark against Big Ten opponents to 4-0 and keeps alive its chance to close the season undefeated against Big Ten rivals with a trip to No. 6 Penn State (10-4, 1-3 Big Ten) on March 20.

The clash between the Sooners and the Nittany Lions will mark the regular-season finale for both teams, and the second straight meet in which OU will be competing on an opponent’s Senior Day.

Penn State will look to close out its season on a high note after being throttled by No. 9 California in a 354.650-344.300 upset Saturday.

The meet is set to begin at 7 p.m. inside Rec Hall in University Park, Pa.

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