ANNAPOLIS, Md. – On a day when the four-time defending NCAA Champions, the No. 1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners made their first-ever appearance at Macdonough Hall, the No. 10 Navy men's gymnastics team didn't let the moment get to them and recorded a season-best five-up, five-count score with 400.6 points on Saturday afternoon. The Sooners continued their five-year undefeated streak as they finished first with 416.7 points.
 
Prior to the competition, Navy honored its three-man senior class of Christian Correale (Harrisburg, Pa.), Mitchell Fornek (Oswego, Ill.) and Mark Pickar (Libertyville, Ill.). Building off the emotion of that ceremony, head coach Kip Simons entered both Fornek and Pickar into the meet as sixth competitors, Fornek on the high bar and Pickar on the floor.
 
In addition to the Mids' senior class their pommel horse lineup played a prominent role on Saturday as they outscored the Sooners 64.6 to 64.5. The trio of Jake Carlson (So., Lakeville, Mass.), Ryan Orce (Jr., Gainesville, Fla.) and David Toussaint (So., Warren, Ohio) led the way as Carlson and Orce tallied matching 13.4 scores to tie for second place, while Toussaint was fourth at 13.1. Carlson's 13.4 tied a career-high score on the apparatus. Lucas Beltran (Jr., Corpus Christi, Texas), Max Gerber (So., Dix Hills, N.Y.) and Cash Buske (Fr., Madison, Wisc.) also had strong individual efforts as they each placed fourth overall in the floor exercise, parallel bars and high bar events, respectively.
 
As a team, Navy scored 68.5 points on the floor exercise, 64.6 on the pommel horse, 65.5 on the rings, 69.8 on the vault, 64.7 on the parallel bars and 67.5 on the high bar. 
 
"I was really pleased with our seniors first and foremost," remarked head coach Kip Simons. "They haven't had a ton of chances to perform for us as a group over their four years, but to watch them come out today, that was special. We knew Oklahoma would get the victory as they have too many horses. We'll get there in time, but today was all about the seniors. For Christian, Mark and Mitchell to go out and finish out their careers in front of a packed house with great support from our fans and administration, and to have the defending national champions come into MacD, it was a win for Navy Gymnastics all around. Today was really exciting."
 
Navy's first event on Saturday was the floor exercise and Beltran was up to the task for the Mids as the squad's anchor turned in a score of 14.2 that was good for fourth overall. His fellow junior, Frank Bradley (McLean, Va.) was right behind in the standings with a 14.1. Beltran's 14.2 was 0.25 points higher than his average coming into the day.
 
With the addition of the Mids' 64.5 from its strong pommel horse effort the hosts trailed the Sooners, 135.8 to 133.1 through two rotations.
 
Oklahoma started putting distance between itself and Navy with a sweep of the top-five spots on the rings and top-four positions on the vault. Ryan McVay (So., Roseville, Calif.) was Navy's top-scorer on the rings with a 13.35 that placed him sixth overall. Meanwhile on the vault, Bradley spearheaded the Mids' effort with a 14.25 that helped him come in fifth.
 
Navy kept plugging away and focusing on their team performance over the final two turns, the parallel bars and high bar. Gerber and Orce completed their parallel bars routines with a great deal of success as they placed fourth and fifth, respectively with scores of 13.25 and 13.2.
 
Buske proved that the platform wasn't too big for him as he surpassed his season average on the high bar with a 13.75 on Saturday. Gerber was 0.2 points behind Buske with a 13.55 to finish in sixth.
 
"I was a little concerned before the meet that our guys could be intimidated because you're standing in line next an Olympian or a National Champion," said Simons. "At times you can get nervous when you're around that kind of talent, but instead we held our ground and defended MacD. We made sure this was our house. They weren't worried with what Oklahoma was doing, they controlled the things that they can control which is what we've stressed to them all along. I'm really pleased with the effort today.
 
"As a team, we got better with this meet. We hit 28 of 30 routines, so we're in good shape there. We have some small things to fix in our landings, but besides that I think we're absolutely on track to peak right for our three remaining goals, winning the USAG Nationals and the ECACs, and finishing in the top-10 at the NCAA Championship."

Navy will be away from competition for a week with its focus on postseason action. First up for the Mids is the 2019 USAG Collegiate Championship on the weekend of March 29-30. The two-day event will be hosted at Macdonough Hall. First touch for the team competition on Friday is set for 3 p.m., while the individual finals will go off at 2 p.m.