ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Early season action continues for the Navy gymnastics team on Friday evening with a head-to-head road bout versus Simpson College. After competing in a pair of multi-team events, the West Point and Navy Opens, over the first two weeks of their 2025 season, the Mids will pack their bags and travel out to Indianola, Iowa for a matchup versus the Storm (0-2) of Simpson, a third-year program that is coached by former Navy assistant Colin Payne. First touch at Cowles Fieldhouse is set for 7 p.m. ET (6 p.m. local) with the action broadcast live on the Virtius platform.

Friday night's contest will be the final tune-up for the Mids as their next meet will be the 2025 Army-Navy Star Meet on Saturday, February 1 at West Point.

Navy-Simpson Series
The Mids and Storm have met once before in a new series between ECAC competitors ... All-time, Navy is 1-0 over Simpson as the Mids won by a score of 381.85-346.40 on March 16, 2023. Going head-to-head with their ECAC league foe for the first time in program history, the Mids swept all six events on their way to the win versus the Storm at Cowles Fieldhouse.
 
Syam Buradagunta led the long list of individual winners as he placed first on the floor exercise and pommel horse. Riley Rose and Sabastian Gordon tied for top billing on the rings, while Connor Van Loo posted the best vault of the evening. Vishal Mandava and Giovanni Gambatese 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.

Comparing the Squads
(2025 averages; 4-up, 4-count scoring system) ... 

	Navy	Simpson
A-A	306.325	289.275
FX	52.33	47.80
PH	48.48	45.63
R	48.70	50.18
V	54.70	53.30
PB	50.85	46.70
HB	51.28	45.68

Last Time Out: Navy Open - January 18 
Navy began the home portion of its 2025 schedule on Saturday afternoon with action at the Navy Open. Competing as one of six teams in a mixed field of collegiate and club programs, the Mids recorded a third-place score of 303.15.

The entire leaderboard for Saturday saw William & Mary edge Springfield by 0.85 points, 306.15 to 305.30 with Navy right behind in third. On the club-side of the standings, Temple placed fourth overall with 278.30 points, while the Florida Storm and North Carolina Airman had incomplete lineups for the 4-up, 4-count event and posted respective scores of 189.80 and 177.60.

As a team, Navy scored 52.85 points on the floor exercise, 44.9 on the pommel horse, 48.7 on the rings, 54.75 on the vault, 50.95 on the parallel bars and 51.0 on the high bar.

Individually, Brian Solomon paced the Mids' effort as he finished first among floor exercise and all-around competitors and was just 0.05 points shy of both the vault and rings' titles. Benjamin Thurlow Lam and William Champagne also turned in second-place results on the floor and parallel bars, respectively.