Freshman Perdue leads NU men’s gymnastics to 3rd place finish at Stanford Open

Grant Perdue scored two career-highs while still recovering from a foot injury from 13 months ago.    

Perdue, a freshman, led the No. 9 Nebraska men's gymnastics team to a third place finish at the Stanford Open on Saturday. The Huskers posted a score of 332.600, falling behind No. 5 California (339.00) and champion No. 6 Stanford (348.300). NU finished ahead of fourth-place Washington (251.200).

"I definitely wish it was higher," NU coach Chuck Chmelka said. "We started off really strong and then started to make the mistakes."

The Huskers scored 57.40 on the floor exercises, three points higher than their season average. Perdue led the way for the Huskers with a score of 14.80, assisted by Andreas Hofer's score of 14.50 and Hayden Henrioulle's 14.10 points.

"Hayden did really well on floor," Chmelka said. "He was kind of just thrown into the routine and hit everything very well."

NU also had strong scores on the high bar, reaching a team score of 55.20 on the event.

"The guys started our first three events outstanding," Chmelka said. "We were right there with them for a while. We were sticking landings, everything was sharp, they did awesome."

However, the Huskers' pommel horse and vault scores were lower than usual. NU scored a total of 53.80 on the pommel horse and 56.10 on the vault, led by Perdue's score of 14.70.

"The first few guys really hit the pommel," Chmelka said. "but then the last three guys made some mistakes. That's the first time that's happened all year, it was very uncharacteristic. It was just weird because we were doing so well and then that hit and everybody got quiet."

Perdue led the Huskers by earning the top three of both floor exercises (14.80) and vault (14.70).

"I definitely feel like I've improved," Perdue said. "My confidence got boosted against Air Force last week and I carried that with me and it helped a lot."

"He did phenomenal," Chmelka said. "Having just come back after sitting out and doing a brand new routine, he hit everything beautifully."

Perdue was out earlier in the season for six weeks due to a stress fracture in his foot. Perdue had the stress fracture for about 13 months before he got an MRI and found out he had the injury.

"I'm not 100 percent yet," Perdue said. "I'm still pushing my injury. Floor and vault are the two events that you need your feet the most, and I was happy with the high scores."

Perdue began practicing with the team during the first week of January, and the effort he's been displaying showed in the meet.

"We knew he had it in him," Chmelka said. "He has enough repetitions in him to make him confident.

NU has the next two weeks to practice and work on increasing its scores before the next meet on Feb. 11.

"The mistakes that we do make aren't the same ones over and over," Chmelka said. "Which is good, it means we're fixing things."

The end of those two weeks of practice leads up to the Huskers' first meet against Big Ten competition. Nebraska will meet the Hawkeyes and Gophers in Iowa City.  

"Were gonna be ready to go into the next phase of the season," Chmelka said. "Phase two. I think the guys are starting to feel more confident, we just have to get back."

MichelleOdonnell@dailynebraskan.com