Michigan
NCAA Individual Event Finals
Mikulak Wins P-Bars NCAA Title; U-M Earns Seven All-America Honors
4/12/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
Site: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Crisler Center)
Event: NCAA Championships (Individual Event Finals)
U-M Team Standing: No team scoring
Attendance: 3,135
Next U-M Event: Season Complete
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- One day after winning the national championship, the University of Michigan men's gymnastics team earned seven All-America citations during the NCAA Individual Event Finals on Saturday (April 12) at Crisler Center. Senior Sam Mikulak (Corona del Mar, Calif./Corona del Mar) was crowned the parallel bar champion with a 15.875 on the event, giving the team captain seven career NCAA titles and putting him in a three-way tie for the most crowns of all-time.
With four All-America citations in 2014 (all-around, floor, vault, parallel bars), Mikulak ends his collegiate career a 17-time All-American -- good for third place all-time.
Michigan took home a pair of top-eight finishes on the floor, with Mikulak placing fourth (15.125). Junior Stacey Ervin (Taylor, Mich./Truman) received a 15.100 on floor for a fifth-place finish, giving him All-America honors on the apparatus for second time in his collegiate career (third on floor in 2012).
Despite qualifying as the top contender on the pommel horse, Mikulak finished in last place on the event. The Big Ten Gymnast of the Year caught his leg on the Russian flop and was ultimately unable to recover.
Caesar
Ervin
Mikulak
Perez-Rivera
Graduate student Syque Caesar (Port Saint Lucie, Fla./Lincoln Park Academy) garnered a 15.325 on the parallel bars to finish in third place -- two spots behind Mikulak's winning routine. Caesar earned his second All-America honor on the night with a 14.975 on high bar for the fifth spot. The Florida native ends his collegiate career a five-time All-American.
Freshman Tristian Perez-Rivera (Caguas, Puerto Rico/Notre Dame) earned a 14.900 for a seventh-place finish on the vault to give him his first All-America citation. Mikulak finished in the eighth spot with a 14.800 as he took a large hop backwards on his landing.
The competition marked the conclusion of Michigan's 2014 season, which featured a Big Ten and NCAA championship for the second consecutive year.
NOTES
• With four All-America citations in 2014 (all-around, floor, vault, parallel bars) and two NCAA titles, Sam Mikulak is now a seven-time NCAA champion and 17-time All-American.
• Mikulak's 17 All-America honors make him the third-most cited gymnast of all time.
• Mikulak's seven career NCAA titles tie him for the most collegiate national titles of any male gymnast ever with both Jim Hartung and Joe Giallombardo.
• Mikulak's win on parallel bars gives him the 34th NCAA title in program history.
• The eight All-America honors this year give Michigan 202 All-America awards in program history.
• As a team, U-M had seven All-America certificate winners on the day.
• The two All-America citations on floor (Mikulak and Ervin) mark the sixth straight season that a Wolverine has earned a citations on the event. Chris Cameron started the streak with his fourth-place finish in 2009.
• Syque Caesar, who recorded a third-place finish (15.325) on parallel bars and a fifth-place finish (14.975) on horizontal bar, ends his career with five All-America honors after earning citations on p-bars, high bar and floor in 2013.
• The event-final appearance for Tristian Perez-Rivera (vault) is the first NCAA Event Final of his career.
• The All-America citation for Perez-Rivera on vault (14.90) is the first of his career.
• The All-America honor for Ervin is the third of his career, as he earned citations on floor and vault as a freshman in 2012. The four-session attendance total of 9,559 is the highest at an NCAA event since 1992 at Stanford (13,007).
QUOTES
Michigan Head Coach Kurt Golder
On keeping the momentum going from last night ... "I don't know what I said. Good job, we accomplished our mission. Let's go out and get some more hardware. We didn't have a perfect day today, but we had eight opportunities to get All-American honors, and we got seven of the eight. There were a lot of days in my coaching career where I would have dreamt of having one All-American. It's pretty special for Sam (Mikulak) to finish the night last night, with a stuck dismount; for the team winning the NCAA championship. Then he finishes the individual finals with a stuck dismount and a national championship. You couldn't have written the script any better for him. He has done so much for Michigan gymnastics and USA gymnastics."
U-M Grad Student Syque Caesar
On emotions after sticking his high bar routine ... "It was close to a stick; it was actually a lot of relief. During the one touch we only had five minutes, and I had to jump from p-bars to high bar and didn't have enough time to put my grips on so I just hung there without grips. It was good; I was glad I got through it and nailed the routine. Once I landed, I was like 'I'm done.'"
On his feelings entering the University of Michigan ... "No way I could have never foreseen how far I have come in this sport. Like I said last night, I give it all to Kurt (Golder). He took a risk on me, and I think it paid off."
U-M Senior Sam Mikulak
On becoming one of the NCAA's most decorated male gymnasts ... "It feels good. That is a great class of men to be a part of, and I'm honored to be one of those gymnasts that will be forever remembered."
On this being his last competition ever for Michigan ... "I do realize that this is the close of my NCAA career for me. It's still processing I guess, it still has not hit me. Going through today, it was, 'Alright, I'm definitely pretty tired,' but it ended as well as I wanted it to end, and I'm just happy that it was on a very positive note."
On what he was feeling when he stuck his last routine on p-bars ... "There was so many different emotions you can put into there. It was just pure joy, I think that is the best one, and the one that will stand out the most."
Players Mentioned
