Feb. 28, 2009
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The No. 12 Navy gymnastics team improved to 14-1 on the year with victories over No. 14 William & Mary and No. 16 Springfield in Macdonough Hall on Saturday afternoon.
The Midshipmen topped the three-team field with 336.05 points, followed by William & Mary's 333.4 points and Springfield's 328.1 points. Navy produced the highest team score on the pommel horse (54.8 points), vault (60.7 points) and parallel bars (55.1 points).
"We expected this level of performance," stated Navy head coach Dr. Sho Fukushima. "We weren't trying to reach our hardest, furthest peak. We added some more difficult skills into the routines, so today was about experimenting and seeing how they performed. It helped to raise their confidence. There were a few mistakes, but we have time this week to clean and perfect those things and another month until conference championships. That's the point that we are working and planning towards."
Leading the Midshipmen effort on Saturday was all-around gymnast Andrew Faulk (Fr./San Antonio, Texas), who tied for first with a cumulative score of 85.15 points among the six events. After scoring a 16.05 on the vault at the All-Academy Championship two weeks ago, he won the event with another impressive score, 15.7 points. He also placed second on the high bar with a score of 14.2 points.
Team captain Adam Stanton (Sr./Centennial, Colo.) had a memorable outing in his final meet in Macdonough Hall. He won the parallel bars with a 14.0-point routine, placed second on the pommel horse with a 14.15-points scoring and landed third on the still rings with a score of 13.95 points.
Three other Midshipmen had top-three performances on Saturday. Dylan Parrott (So./Rockwell, N.C.) finished second on the floor exercise with a stellar 14.9-point routine and placed third on the vault with a 15.0-point effort. Ken Lee (Sr./Rockville, Md.) took second on the vault with a 15.25-point performance and third on the pommel horse with a score of 13.8 points. Classmate Trey James (Sr./Matthews, N.C.) finished third on both the parallel bars and high bar with scores of 13.85 points and 14.05 points, respectively.
"Everybody really helped with the win," said Fukushima. "This is a really close team - there are no individuals. They work and compete as a team. Their teamwork is wonderful."
The Midshipmen will return to action on Sunday, March 8, when they head down to Williamsburg, Va., to take on William & Mary and Penn State at 2 p.m.
