2005 GMM Big Ten Championships -- Day 2 Notes & Quotes
3/26/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
N O T E S
Junior Justin Laury is only the second Wolverine to capture the Big Ten Athlete of the Year award since the inception of the award in 1988. Ten-time All-American Scott Vetere earned the recognition in 2000. Laury also earned conference Freshman of the Year honors in 2003.
First team All-Big Ten honors went to Illinois' Ted Brown, Ben Newman and Justin Spring; Iowa's Linas Gaveika and Michael Reavis; Michigan's Justin Laury; Minnesota's Guillermo Alvarez; and Ohio State's D.J. Bucher, Ronald Ferris and Randy Monahan.
The Wolverines combined to set or match 12 career-best marks over the two-day competition. Four of those scores came in the floor exercise, while three each came on the still rings and parallel bars.
Illinois' Ben Newman captured his third consecutive Big Ten pommel horse title, sharing the top honor with teammate Ted Brown. It marked the first time since 1994 that two individuals from the same school tied for an event crown. The last duo to achieve the feat was Ohio State's Drew Durbin and Kip Simons on the parallel bars.
Q U O T E S
U-M Senior Eddie Umphrey
On his weekend performance ... "It was great. I did four events and made three event finals, so I was really excited about that. To do it in front of an Ann Arbor crowd was just amazing. With it also being my senior year, everything was set up perfectly for success. It was amazing."
On stepping up for tonight's competition ... "I didn't want to miss in front of my home crowd. Being my senior year, I wanted to go out there and do eveything I could do to have no regrets. I wanted to go out and win gold. Unfortunately, I didn't, but I don't have any regrets about this whole weekend."
U-M Junior Luke Bottke
On today's competition ... "It was fun. We all just came in trying to improve on what we did yesterday. Today was a lot more laid back than yesterday. We just tried to make everything perfect, and let all the placements figure themselves out."
On preparing for the NCAA Championships ... "This definitely helps in preparation. The Big Ten is the strongest conference, and there are only a few other teams in the mix from the other conferences. What you do here is a big motivation to keep working hard and step it up in a few weeks."
