Feb. 19, 2006
ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Navy gymnastics senior team captain Ben Peterman (Amherst, Mass.) scored a career-best 9.55 to win the vault to spark a Midshipmen rally attempt in the final event, but came in a close second in the seventh-annual All-Academy Championship at the United States Gymnastics Training Center. No. 11 Army won the championship for the sixth-straight year with 200.75 points, followed by No. 14 Navy's 200.7 points and No. 18 Air Force's 179.475 points.
Trailing 167.75-164.55 heading into the final event, Navy began to chip away at the deficit on the vault. Then, with two competitors remaining, Peterman pulled off his highest-scoring performance of his career, while the Mids racked up a season-high 36.15 points in the event to pull ahead with Army's Mike Oliveira as the final gymnast to compete. Down by 8.1 points, Oliveira received an 8.15 from the judges on the parallel bars to give the Black Knights their sixth-straight championship.
Highlighted by his performance on the vault, Peterman recorded a 49.3 in the all-around competition. Fellow senior Grant Regelin (Columbia, Md.) followed in the all-around with a 48.3-point tally.
In addition to Peterman's first-place effort on the vault, junior Sean Blackman (Fayetteville, Ga.) won the still rings competition on Saturday. Blackman, ranked ninth in the nation in the event, posted a season-high score of 9.45 points, 0.10 point ahead of Army's Mike Tiffany.
Sophomore Brandon Cook (Longmont, Colo.) accounted for two of Navy's four second-place finishes. Cook assisted on Navy's comeback attempt on the vault with a 9.25-point performance. Earlier in the competition, the sophomore registered an 8.65-point showing in the floor exercise for second-place honors.
Senior Christopher Tam (Draper, Utah) earned an 8.3 on the parallel bars for a second-place showing. Tam also recorded an 8.45 on the high bar to tie for third-place on Saturday.
Freshman Adam Stanton (Centennial, Colo.) scored 8.05 points on the pommel horse to join Cook and Tam with second-place efforts.
Navy returns back to the East Coast to take on MIT in Cambridge, Mass., on Sunday, Feb. 26.
