INDIANOLA, Iowa – The No. 9 Navy men's gymnastics team wrapped up its regular season with a road victory over No. 15 Simpson College by a score of 381.85-346.40 on Thursday night. Going head-to-head with their ECAC league foe for the first time in program history, the Mids (6-2) swept all six events on their way to the win versus the Storm (0-10) at Cowles Field House.
 
Syam Buradagunta (Jr., Westborough, Mass.) led the long list of individual winners on Thursday night as he placed first on the floor exercise and pommel horse. Sophomores Riley Rose (Las Vegas, Nev.) and Sabastian Gordon (Old Tappan, N.J.) tied for top billing on the rings, while Connor Van Loo (Sr., Freeland, Mich.) posted the best vault of the evening. Vishal Mandava (So., Cypress, Texas) and Giovanni Gambatese (Sr., Pewaukee, Wisc.) rounded out Navy's group of top achievers as the duo won the parallel bars and high bar events, respectively.
 
As a team, Navy scored 66.15 points on the floor exercise, 58.9 on the pommel horse, 63.3 on the rings, 68.05 on the vault, 62.65 on the parallel bars and 62.8 on the high bar.
 
"It was good to end our regular season with a win tonight," remarked assistant coach Craig Holt, who was leading the Mids on Thursday as head coach Kip Simons is in Germany with Isaiah Drake and Team USA at the DTB Pokal Mixed Cup. "We weren't as crisp as we would have liked, but we got a chance to see how some of our younger gymnasts handled an away meet versus a conference opponent. We were without a handful of regular starters tonight so our depth played a large role in us getting this victory."
 
The conference matchup began with the Mids taking four the top-five positions on the floor exercise. Buradagunta cruised to the event title as he bested second-place finisher Aaron Stein (Fr., Houston, Texas) by 0.25 points, 13.65 to 13.4. After Simpson's Sterling Pariza came in third, Ian Dinmore (Jr., Odenton, Md.) and Van Loo went back-to-back with respective scores of 13.15 and 13.0. Danilo Viciana (Fr., Marietta, Ga.) just missed matching Van Loo's output as he netted 12.95 points to rank sixth overall.
 
Buradagunta outscored the field by an even larger margin of victory on the pommel horse as he posted a 12.65 score, 0.5 points better than his teammate William Champagne (So., Douglas, Mass.), who registered a 12.15 for his routine. Mandava and Viciana tied for fifth with identical scores of 11.65.
 
On the ensuing apparatus, the rings, Navy dominated the top of the standings with each of the top-four finishers. Gordon and Rose split the top honors as both posted scores of 12.9. Stein nearly equaled his career-best score of 12.8 as he recorded a 12.75-point effort on Thursday night on the rings. Competing in his third straight event, Viciana came in fourth with a score of 12.55.
 
The Mids continued controlling the meet as they began the second half of the competition with four of the top-five scores on the vault. Van Loo led a crowded top of the table as he held off Matthew Petros (Fr., Broadview Heights, Ohio) by 0.1 points, 14.0 to 13.9. Gambatese was right behind his teammates with a 13.85 vault. Buradagunta registered his third top-five result of the evening as his vault earned him 13.55 points, good for fifth overall.
 
Navy's sophomore class showed out on the parallel bars as Mandava, Champagne and Rose went one-two-three on the apparatus versus Simpson. Mandava led the way with an 8.75 execution score on his 4.5-point difficultly level routine for a 13.25 cumulative score. Champagne and Rose garnered scores of 12.9 and 12.65 for their respective routines.
 
Similar to the rings, the Mids closed out the meet with a sweep of the top-four positions on the high bar. The senior leader of the high bar lineup, Gambatese posted the individual victory with a 13.2 score. For just third time in his career, Erik Engelke (Jr., Henrico, Va.) reached the 13-point plateau on the high bar as he was rewarded with a 13.05 on Thursday night. Rose made it three Navy gymnasts with 13.0 or better routines as the sophomore posted a 13.0. Petros completed the run of Mids atop the standings with a score of 11.95 to finish in fourth place.
 
With the regular season in its rearview mirror, Navy will now turn its attention to the postseason. First up will be two days of competition at the 2023 USAG Collegiate Championships at Springfield College. The team event at Blake Arena in Springfield, Mass. is scheduled for Friday, March 24 at 1 p.m. followed by the event finals on the following day at the same time.  
Away from collegiate action, Navy sophomore Isaiah Drake will be representing the United States this weekend at the DTB Pokal Mixed Cup on Sunday, March 19 in Stuttgart, Germany. The competition will feature two men and two women suiting up on each apparatus. Drake will be representing the U.S. alongside Stanford's Jeremy Bischoff and Michigan's Landon Blixt, as well as female gymnasts Nola Matthews, Elle Mueller and Addison Fatta. First touch is slated for 9:30 a.m. ET.