DANBURY, Conn. - The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) recently announced the all-academic team for Men's Gymnastics and Navy's squad was at the forefront of the release with 12 honorees. In the second year that this award has been given out by the conference, the Mids saw nearly half of its 24-man team recognized for its academic prowess. The honor requires student-athletes to have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better and includes freshmen who reached the required 3.0 GPA during their first academic semester in the Fall.
Navy's 12-man list of honorees consists of senior
Connor Van Loo (Robotics & Control Engineering); juniors
Syam Buradagunta (Operations Research),
Ian Dinmore (Chemistry),
Erik Engelke (Quantitative Economics) and
Matthew Rosendahl (Honors-Robotics & Control Engineering); sophomores
William Champagne (Operations Research),
Sabastian Gordon (Quantitative Economics),
Vishal Mandava (Operations Research) and
RJ Spears (Chemistry); and freshmen
Garrett Lawless (Operations Research),
Matthew Petros (Computer Engineering) and
Benjamin Venters (Chemistry). Of note, Dinmore stands first in the Class of 2024 in Academic Order of Merit for his perfect 4.0 GPA through five semesters at the Naval Academy and was recently announced as the winner of the ELITE 90 award at the 2023 NCAA Championship.
Not just high achievers in the classroom, Navy has defended its team title at the ECAC Championship five straight times, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Mids rounded out their season last weekend with two days of high achievements at the 2023 NCAA Championship. Competing as a team in the national event for the seventh straight time, seven Mids advanced from Friday's qualifying meet at Penn State to the event finals of the NCAA Championship on Saturday. At the end of Saturday night two of those gymnasts,
Isaiah Drake and
Syam Buradagunta, found themselves atop the podium as NCAA All-Americans for the all-around and floor exercise events. The individual accolades are the first for a Midshipman since 1973.
