ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Navy gymnastics team came out on Saturday and thrilled its home fans with a dominant 21.6-point win over the field at the 2019 Navy Open. In just their second meet of the 2019 season, the Mids surpassed the 400-point barrier with a score of 400.55. Buoyed by team victories in all six events and individual wins in five of the six rotations, Navy easily finished atop the four-team field in the event at Macdonough Hall.
William & Mary and Springfield battled down to the end for second place as the Tribe edged the Pride by 0.3 points, 378.95 to 378.65. Temple finished fourth on Saturday with 349.20 points.
As a team, Navy scored 67.8 points on the floor exercise, 63.7 on the pommel horse, 68.6 on the rings, 70.75 on the vault, 63.9 on the parallel bars and 65.8 on the high bar. The Mids were 2.0 points or better on four of the apparatus and were most closely challenged on the p-bars where they bettered the Pride by 0.15 points.
"Breaking the 400-point mark at this point in the season is a great indicator of the potential of this group," exclaimed head coach
Kip Simons. "We still had some mistakes today, but the next man stepped up and got the job done. We have some issues on the parallel bars, that we need to fix, but other than that we have the right guys competing with the right routines. We'll be set to peak two weeks from now at the Star Meet. Our depth and preseason grind is paying right now."
Individually,
Lucas Beltran (Jr., Corpus Christi, Texas) led the way for Navy at the meet as he won a pair of events, the floor exercise and the vault. Other event winners for the Mids on Saturday, included
Ryan Orce (Jr., Gainesville, Fla.) on the pommel horse,
Ben Provost (Jr., South Hadley, Mass.) on the parallel bars and
Cash Buske (Madison, Wisc.) on the high bar.
Navy's afternoon started with a strong performance on the floor exercise in which its highest five scorers all finished within the top-six. Beltran took the honors on the floor as the junior posted a score of 14.1 that cleared the field by 0.45 points.
David Toussaint (So., Warren, Ohio), the reigning ECAC Specialist of the Week, was solid once again as he came in second at 13.65. The duo of Provost and
Ryan McVay (So., Roseville, Calif.) were separated by just 0.05 points at 13.45 and 13.4, scores that placed them third and fourth, respectively. The fifth Mid in the top-six was
Josh Williams (Fr., Cypress, Texas), who recorded a score 13.20 to finish in sixth.
The competition on the pommel horse was slightly more wide open as Orce and William & Mary's Jacopo Gliozzi each received scores of 13.50 on the apparatus. Toussaint and McVay came in back-to-back in third and fourth with routines that scored 13.4 and 13.2 points, respectively.
The rings were the only event in which a Navy gymnast didn't finish atop the standings as William & Mary's David Watkins came in first at 14.35. The Mids' Williams finished 0.25 points back in second with a 14.10 score. Beltran racked up a third-place result with a 13.85 before
Nehemiah Baker (Fr., Oak Ridge, N.C.) placed fourth at 13.70. All six of the Mids that went up on the rings on Saturday finished in the top-nine.
Beltran's second event win of the day occurred on the vault as he flipped and twisted his way to a score of 14.70. He cleared the field by 0.4 points before Springfield's Stephen Lewis posted a 14.30 score. The Navy pairing of
Frank Bradley (Jr., McLean, Va.) and
Travis Keller (So., Centreville, Va.) went three-four in the standings with respective scores of 14.15 and 14.10.
Next up, the Mids collected three top-five results on the parallel bars. Provost led the way as he recorded a 13.5-point performance. His classmate, Orce was 0.10 points behind in second place at 13.40. After the Springfield duo of Trevor Lambeton (13.2) and Lewis (13.05) came in third and fourth place,
Dhiren Lutchman (Fr., Beltsville, Md.) tallied 12.85 points to place fifth. That routine marked Lutchman's collegiate debut after sitting out the West Point Open last weekend.
Navy flexed its muscle in its final event of the day, the high bar. Already securely in the lead, the Mids swept the top-five positions with scores between, 13.50 and 12.90. Buske highlighted Navy's performances as he compiled a score of 13.50 on the apparatus. Provost and Lutchman were closely packed together after posting respective scores of 13.25 and 13.20. The top-five was rounded out by
Christian Correale (Sr., Harrisburg, Pa.) in fourth place at 12.95 and Orce in fifth at 12.90.
After two weeks of multi-team open action to start their season, the Mids will head to Williamsburg, Va. for a head-to-head competition with the William & Mary Tribe. The meet at Kaplan Arena is set for 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26.
