Feb. 29, 2008
Results
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Despite a season-high team score on Friday night, the Navy gymnastics team suffered a 341.65-340.8 loss to William & Mary in Macdonough Hall. The Midshipmen fell to 8-4 on the year, while the Tribe upped their mark to 4-3.
"We had a really good team score, but fell behind early and had trouble getting back," stated Navy head coach Sho Fukushima. "We knew how talented of a team William & Mary is and they certainly put up some solid performances today. I'm looking forward to meeting with them three more times this year and hopefully catching up to them."
The Midshipmen opened up a narrow 113.0-112.65 lead after the opening-two events, but the Tribe came back to win the next two and claim a 228.85-228.0 advantage going into the final-two rotations. Navy went on to win the high bar, but William & Mary came away victorious on the parallel bars by the same margin to ensure the triumph.
Navy's strongest performance of the night came on the pommel horse, where it scored 55.45 points, 1.7 more than William & Mary's mark. Leading the way was Adam Stanton (Jr./Centennial, Colo.), the nation's 14th-ranked gymnast in the event. He executed a 14.5-point routing to top Derek Gygax's 14.05, second-place performance.
On the high bar, each of Navy's four scoring gymnasts earned higher than a 14.0 from the judges to tally 57.1 points. Isaac Olson (Sr./Spokane, Wash.) placed second with a score of 14.55 points, followed by teammate Christopher Tam's (Sr./Draper, Utah) third-place, 14.45-point effort.
Navy's other individual event victory came on the vault, as Brandon Cook (Sr./Longmont, Colo.) led all competitors with a 15.45-point effort. He also came in second on the floor exercise with a score of 15.1 points.
Tam scored higher than a 13.0 in all-six disciplines, including a second-place mark of 14.2 on the still rings, to rack up 82.95 points in the all-around. He finished only 0.10-point off the total produced by Gygax on Friday night.
The Midshipmen will return to action on Saturday, March 8, when they head up to University Park, Pa., to take on Penn State and William & Mary. The tri-meet is slated for a 2 p.m. start.
