Michigan
Big Ten Individual Finals
Vetere Captures Big Ten Parallel Bars Championship
3/24/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
Site: State College, Pa. (Rec Hall)
Event: #2 Michigan at Big Ten Championships (Individual Event Finals)
U-M Team Finish: No Team Scoring
Next U-M Event: Thursday, April 5 -- at NCAA Championship Team Preliminaries (Columbus, Ohio.), 1 or 7 p.m.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- University of Michigan junior Scott Vetere (Pennsburg, Pa./Quakertown HS) captured the parallel bar title to lead the Wolverine men's gymnastics team at the 2001 Big Ten Conference Championships individual event finals Saturday (March 24) at Penn State University's Rec Hall. Michigan had the most individuals in the individual event finals, with seven Wolverines performing a total of 11 routines.
Vetere earned a spot on his third consecutive All-Big Ten team with his score of 9.200 on the parallel bars. He also performed on the still rings and captured second place with a 9.537. In the past two years, Vetere has garnered five of the seven individual event titles -- all-around, pommel horse, still rings and vault in 2000 and parallel bars in 2001.
Junior Daniel Diaz-Luong (Harrisburg, Pa./Bishop McDevitt HS) took home second-place honors on the high bar (9.412) and fourth-place honors on the floor exercise (9.112), still rings (9.475) and parallel bars (8.962). Diaz-Luong garnered his third All-Big Ten team distinction by finishing third in the all-around competition (March 23).
Also competing in the individual event finals were Michigan's trio of sophomores. Jamie Hertza (West Bloomfield, Mich./West Bloomfield HS) and Kris Zimmerman (Winnetka, Ill./New Trier HS) tied for second on the floor exercise with scores of 9.137, and classmate Conan Parzuchowski (Northville, Mich./University of Detroit Jesuit HS) took home third place on the still rings with a 9.512.
Senior tri-captain Tim Dehr (Burr Ridge, Ill./Hinsdale Central HS) finished fifth on the pommel horse (8.375). Also competing in the event finals on the floor exercise was junior Brad Kenna (Barberton, Ohio/Walsh Jesuit HS).
The Wolverines will close out the season at the 2001 NCAA Championships, beginning Thursday (April 5) with the team preliminaries in Columbus, Ohio, at St. John Arena on the campus of Ohio State University. The top three teams from the two preliminary sessions advance to the team finals on April 6 at 7 p.m. Concluding the weekend of competition will be the NCAA individual event championships on Saturday (April 7) at 7 p.m.
The list of NCAA qualifiers (team and individual) and groupings for the team prelims will be announced Wednesday (March 28) by the NCAA Gymnastics Committee.
Event-By-Event U-M Individual Scores
FLOOR EXERCISE Jamie Hertza 9.137 (T2) Daniel Diaz-Luong 9.112 (4) Brad Kenna 8.275 Kris Zimmerman 9.137 (T2) POMMEL HORSE Tim Dehr 8.375 (5) STILL RINGS Conan Parzuchowski 9.512 (3) Daniel Diaz-Luong 9.475 (T4) Scott Vetere 9.537 (2) PARALLEL BARS Daniel Diaz-Luong 8.962 (4) Scott Vetere 9.200 (1) HIGH BAR Daniel Diaz-Luong 9.412 (2)
( ) denotes place in the Top 5
Players Mentioned
