April 8, 2015
Qualifier 1
Qualifier 2
Team Finals
Event Finals
CHICAGO -- Five members of the UIC men's gymnastics team will compete against the nation's top gymnasts at the 2015 NCAA Championship, hosted by the University of Oklahoma. Competition is scheduled to run Thursday, April 9 through Saturday, April 11 at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Okla.
The Flames will be represented at the NCAAs with five gymnasts, plus an alternate. Alexander Dumstorf will compete in floor exercise, while Trent Jarrett will be on rings and Jacob Thurber heads to vault. Jason Gaides and Brett Valin are both set to compete in the all-around competition. Kyle Christiansen will travel with the Flames as an alternate on horizontal bars.
"I know that we have the talent, we just have to take it one-step at a time," said head coach Charley Nelson. "We have to go out there do our job, and compete well."
The national qualifier will be held April 9 prior to finals competitions, with two sessions set to begin at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. CST. Each session holds six of the 12 qualifying teams, in addition to five all-around and five event qualifiers.
Three teams and the top three all-around competitors not on one of the qualifying teams, plus the top three individuals on each event not already qualified on a team or as an all-around competitor, will advance from each pre-qualifying session to the finals session. Final competitions will take place April 10-11, also at Oklahoma.
UIC enters competition following the ECAC Championships, where the team finished fourth with a final score of 409.350. In individual competition, Gaides took second after scoring 84.600 in the all-around. Gaides was also named the Senior Gymnast of the Year. Valin won the rings competition with a final score of 14.600, and collected a team-best finish on vault (4th, 14.350) and parallel bars (7th, 13.700).
Check back to UICFlames.com for full coverage of the NCAA Championships. For live scoring at the National Collegiate Men's Gymnastics Championships, follow the links provided above.
