Final Results

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - In the first home meet of the 2016 season for the Navy gymnastics team, the Midshipmen defended their title in the annual Navy Open with a final result of 414.05. The host Mids finished 11.4 points clear of the field and second place William & Mary (402.65). The final two collegiate teams to compete at Macdonough Hall on Saturday were the third-place finishing Temple Owls (394.95) and fourth-place Springfield Pride (394.75).

Individually, Navy gymnasts earned event victories on all six events, as well as the all-around competition. Senior Mitchell Larios (Frisco, Texas) and junior Jonny Tang (Malvern, Pa.) each won two competitions, while seniors Eric Morrision (Broomfield, Colo.), Connor Gonzales (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) and Eric Poletti (Lancaster, Pa.) all collected an event win each.

"Getting the win this afternoon was great, but there are a lot of places that we must improve upon in short order," remarked head coach Kip Simons after the meet. "We have a good pommel horse team, but we didn't show it today. On the parallel bars, we were off from the beginning and our preparation did not look good. After scoring a 71.5 at West Point two weeks ago to a 66.1 today, that is not what the team or myself expects. We made little mistakes that will not happen again.

"Though they may not have finished in first place in their events, individually I thought Noah Beeman (So., Dayton, Ohio) and Josh Gong (Sr., Oxnard, Calif.) gave us really strong performances. Noah did an excellent job as he went out there as a sophomore and hit five of his five events. Josh also did a really good job and put together an excellent ring set. Finally, Mitch did what Mitch does and was great. Individual performances aside, it'll take a complete team effort next Saturday to get the victory over Army."

As a team, the Mids recorded a score of 69.05 in the floor exercise, 67.6 on the pommel horse, 70.15 on the rings, 72.0 on the vault, 66.1 on the parallel bars and a 69.15 on the high bar. Navy's performance on the vault tied last week's program-record mark.

All six competitors and all five counters notched 14.0-plus performances on the vault on Saturday afternoon. Overall winner, Mitch Larios led the way with a 14.75 score. David Frick (Sr., St. Johns, Fla.) backed up Larios' mark with a career-best score of 14.55. His previous high was a 14.35. Tang, Zac Ceroli (Sr., Angier, N.C.) and Beeman rounded out Navy's counters with results of 14.3, 14.25 and 14.15, respectively.

Upperclassmen powered the Mids' success on the rings as Gonzales came out in his first meet of the year and posted a 14.6 score. Right behind him in the overall standings were Gong and Wyatt LaPointe (Jr., Mechanicsburg, Pa.). Gong's effort scored him a 14.3 mark, while LaPointe posted a 14.05. All three respective marks were career-bests and were the first time in the trio's individual careers that they had recorded a score over 14.0.

The high bar lineup showed strongly as well on Saturday afternoon, as the top four individual scorers all came from Navy. Poletti led the quartet with a career-best mark of 14.15. Tang joined him in the 14.0's with a score of 14.05. Beeman and Frick rounded out the high-scoring group with results of 13.95 and 13.8, respectively.

Navy took two of the top three individual finishes on both the floor exercise and pommel horse. On the floor, Tang and Beeman went first and third with scores of 15.0 and 14.0, respectively. On the ensuing rotation, Morrison and Beeman kept the flurry of high scores coming with respective results of 14.4 and 13.9. Beeman's pommel horse routine was a career-best effort.

On the parallel bar rotation, the Mids struggled as a unit, but Larios showed his senior leadership with a career-high 14.9 score, that tied Dylan Parrott (4/14/11) as the highest in school history since the new scoring system was implemented in 2008.

After the meet had concluded, Tang finished atop the leaderboard in the all-around competition with a score of 83.55. In addition to his top scoring results in the floor exercise, vault and high bar, he also scored 13.3 points on the pommel horse, 13.5 on the rings and 13.4 on the parallel bars. He defeated William & Mary's Aria Sabbagh for top honors by 3.1 points.

"In closing, after two weeks of training, I'm a little disappointed with this overall result," said Simons. "I expected the team to be more dialed in, but I can guarantee you come Monday when our prep for Army begins, we'll be dialed in. I'm excited for what the Army-Navy matchup will be next weekend."

Navy will be back in action at home next Saturday, Feb. 6 with the annual Army-Navy Star Match. The competition between the heated rivals will begin at 1 p.m. at Macdonough Hall.