Hong, Young lead Stanford men’s gymnastics to 5th consecutive national title

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Stanford’s Asher Hong won the vault, parallel bars and rings and Khoi Young won the all-around title to help the Cardinal secure its fifth consecutive NCAA men’s gymnastics national championship on Saturday.

Stanford won its 10th title in program history — tied with Illinois for third-most all time — and joins Nebraska (1979-83) as the only schools to win five in a row. Penn State and Oklahoma have each won 12 titles.

The Cardinal finished with 425.324 points, 5.635 ahead of second-place Michigan. Oklahoma, which won four straight national championship from 2015-18, finished with 412.956 to edge out fourth-place Nebraska (412.427) and Illinois (411.659). Ohio State was sixth with 399.122.

The sophomore Hong scored a 15.266 to win the vault for the second consecutive season in Rotation 1 as Stanford had 73.632 — the highest score by any team in any rotation — on its way to a wire-to-wire win. Michigan’s Paul Juda and Young each had a 15.133 to round out the top 3.

Young ran away with the all-around title, finishing with 86.098 and beating Fred Richard of Michigan by 2.099 points. Oklahomas Fuzzy Buenas was third, Juda fourth and Josh Karnes of Penn State fifth. Richard and Karnes were separated by just 0.335 points.

Juda won the floor with a score of 14.800 to beat second-place Taylor Christopulos of Nebraska by 0.300 and Illinois’ Connor McCool finished third with 14.466.

Air Force’s Patrick Hoopes scored a 15.300 to take first in the horse and win the first men’s gymnastics title in program history. Young and his Stanford teammate J.R. Chou finished second and third, respectively.

Hong beat out a pair of Wolverines to win the rings with a 14.966. Richard was second with 14.500, 0.067 ahead of Javier Alfonso.

Hong (15.100) and Young (14.900) finished 1-2 in the vault with Karnes taking third with 14.666 points.

Tate Costa of Illinois won the high bar with a score of 13.900. Zachary Tiderman and Taylor Christopulos — both from Nebraska — round out the top 3.

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