Jan. 18, 2008

Individual Results
Team Results

WEST POINT, N.Y. - The Navy men's gymnastics team kicked off its 2008 slate in fine fashion on Friday night, finishing second out of the five collegiate teams at the 17th-annual West Point Open.

Friday's action marked Navy's first competition under the new NCAA scoring system that no longer is based on the 10.0 scale.

Team Gattaca, a club team comprised of several former NCAA Championship gymnasts, topped the field with a team score of 347.10. Temple, who came in ranked 11th nationally, led all collegiate squads with a 339.55-point team tally. The 15th-ranked Midshipmen racked up 332.25 points to finish ahead of 12th-ranked Army's 330.10 points. Springfield came in fifth place with a team score of 321.4 points, followed by Arizona State's (club team) 313.9 points and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's 306.5 points.

In addition to the solid team showing on Friday night, the Midshipmen had six of their own qualify in four different disciplines for the individual event finals that will be held tomorrow at 7 p.m.

Navy concluded the night in fine fashion on the pommel horse, as three of its gymnasts finished among the top six. Adam Stanton (Jr./Centennial, Colo.) placed fourth with a 14.0, followed by Joseph Atzenbeck's (Jr./Broomfield, Colo.) fifth-place 13.95 and Trey James's (Jr./Matthews, N.C.) sixth-place 13.9. Stanton also finished among the top-eight gymnasts on the parallel bars, earning a 14.05 from the judges to place sixth and advance to Saturday's competition.

The Midshipmen had two gymnasts qualify on Friday for the high bar finals. Isaac Olson (Sr./Bristol, R.I.) came in sixth place with a 14.4, while Christopher Tam (Sr./Draper, Utah) finished eighth with his 14.25-point showing. Tam, Navy's lone competitor in the all-around, accumulated 81.15 points among the six events to land 15th overall.

To round out the advancing contingent for Navy, Brandon Cook (Sr./Longmont, Colo.) delivered a third-place performance of 15.6 on the vault.