ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Coming off another record-breaking year for the program, the Navy gymnastics team will kick off its 2024 campaign this weekend with two days of action at the West Point Open. The Mids are coming off a season that saw two of their gymnasts attain All-American status for the first time in 50 years after seven qualified for and advanced to the second day of competition at the 2023 NCAA Championship. Additionally, three Mids received the opportunity to test themselves against the nation's best professional and amateurs at the 2023 U.S. Classic over the summer. These outstanding performances mixed with a strong 13-member upperclass and 11 additional underclassmen should result in another banner year for Kip Simons' program.
The goals once again for the Midshipmen in 2024 are to defeat Army in the annual Army-Navy Star Meet, reign supreme in the All-Academy Championship before defending their titles at the USAG Collegiate and ECAC Championships in the postseason. Securing a spot for their team at the NCAA Championship Qualifying Meet and potentially a berth into the Championship Finals as a team or with as many individual competitors remains the final checkmark. Since taking over the program prior to the 2016 season, Simons has led Navy to the NCAA Championship in seven of his first eight seasons, with the only outlier being 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly curtailed the Mids march to the NCAAs. At last year's national meet the team netted 392.491 points to finish fifth in session one and tenth overall. Individually, seven Mids advanced to event finals with
Isaiah Drake and
Syam Buradagunta garnering NCAA All-American honors for their efforts in the all-around and floor exercise competitions. Drake and Buradagunta's top-eight results gave the program its first All-American since Eric Swanson in 1973.
What's Ahead - West Point Open
Navy will be in action at the multi-team 2024 West Point Open on Friday and Saturday night. The team and all-around competition begins the two-day event at Army's Holleder Center on Friday starting at 7 p.m. Navy will be vying for the team title against Army, Penn State, Springfield, Temple and William & Mary. The Mids will be taking aim at a Nittany Lions club that should be favored going into the event after placing sixth at last year's NCAA Championship. Additionally, Penn State is the defending champion of the West Point Open as they posted a score of 407.60 in 2023. In a battle for third place at last year's meet, Navy bested Army by 4.35 points, 394.50 to 390.15, The individual event titles will be up for grabs on Saturday night as the eight highest qualifiers from each apparatus will go head-to-head starting at 7 p.m. Army's Knight Vision streaming service will be providing video for Friday night's portion of the overall event with the Navy's Facebook page supplying event-by-event coverage.
Who's Back
The make-up of the 2024 roster is fairly evenly dispersed with seven seniors, six juniors, seven sophomores and four freshmen. The senior class will be led by team captain
Ian Dinmore, who came on in 2023 as a key contributor in the Mids' floor exercise and pommel horse lineups. He'll be joined by six other battle-tested classmates;
Syam Buradagunta,
Erik Engelke,
Caleb Hickey,
Ronan McQuillan,
Matthew Rosendahl and
John Wendeborn, that have raised their hand in competition a combined total of 132 times coming into this season. The Class of 2025 will move into upperclass leadership roles this season now with two years of collegiate experience under their belts. A member of the 2023 U.S. Senior National Development Team,
Isaiah Drake will headline a talented group of juniors that consists of
William Champagne,
Sabastian Gordon,
Vishal Mandava,
Riley Rose and
RJ Spears.
Navy's sophomore class received important reps in competition and in the gym during practices through the 2022-23 academic year.
Matthew Petros (VT, PB, HB),
Aaron Stein (FX, R) and
Danilo Viciana (FX, PH, R) earned regular starts as member of the Mids' six-event lineups. The trio was up for the task early on as all three contributed at least one top-eight result a piece at the 2023 Army-Navy Meet in February, including a second on the parallel bars by Petros. While not seeing collegiate action,
Garrett Lawless,
Colton McCormack,
Colby Prince and
Benjamin Venters have been grinding away in the offseason to hone their skill sets and break into the weekend starting lineup.
In total, nine of the 20 returners earned at least one ECAC All-Conference honor for their performance at the year-end conference championship that was held in Annapolis last April; Buradagunta (3x), Dinmore, Drake (4x), Gordon, Hickey, Mandava, McQuillan, Petros and Rose. At the sports' grandest collegiate stage, Buradagunta, Champagne, Dinmore, Drake, Hickey, and Rosendahl all qualified for and competed as individuals on the final night of the NCAA Championships.
Who's New
Having to replace three 2023 graduates,
Kip Simons and his assistant coaches
Craig Holt and
Mike Reid have brought in four talented freshmen who are looking to make their mark in the collegiate gymnastics world. The quartet of plebes will bring diverse talents to the program as they've all been raised in gyms from across the United States ranging from California on the West Coast and Texas to the south to as close as Columbia, Maryland. Navy's Class of 2028 consists of
Julian Galvez (Md.),
Daniel Gurevich (Texas),
Brian Solomon (Mass.), Ben Thurlow Lam (Calif.).
2024 Season at a Glance
This weekend's action at the West Point Open will be the first of five straight weeks of early season action. This early run of competition includes three straight home competitions: the 2024 Navy Open on Jan. 20, a home duel with William & Mary on Jan. 27 and the annual Army-Navy Star Meet on Feb. 3 in Halsey Fieldhouse. The following weekend, service academy glory will be up for grabs at the 2024 All-Academy Championship in Frisco, Texas on Feb. 10. After a break for the Winter Cup (Feb. 22-24), the Mids' regular season slate closes with head-to-head meets at Oklahoma on March 9 and William & Mary on March 16.
Following the regular season, Navy will head to the United States Air Force Academy for the 2024 USAG Collegiate Championships on the weekend of March 22-23 before coming to the East Coast for the ECAC Championship on April 6 at Springfield College. This year's NCAA Championship will be hosted by the Penn State University on the weekend of April 19-20.
