ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The 2026 season gets underway for the Navy men's gymnastics team this Saturday afternoon with a home head-to-head bout versus Springfield College. Coming off a season that saw the Mids capture a Star Meet victory over Army in front of a hostile crowd at West Point, collect the 2025 USAG Collegiate Championship, finish runner-up at the ECAC Championship and qualify for and compete at the NCAA Championship for the ninth time in ten years under the tutelage of head coach Kip Simons (the only year they didn't go was in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), Navy is ready to get the 2026 campaign going with a home contest on Saturday at Halsey Field House. This year's squad is 25 gymnasts deep with six seniors leading the way with 18 Mids in total returning to the program and seven new members joining this past summer.

The goals once again for the Midshipmen in 2026 are to defeat Army in the annual Army-Navy Star Meet in February, stand tall at the All-Academy Championship over Army and Air Force and find their way to the top of the podium at the USAG Collegiate and ECAC Championships in the postseason. The final mark on their annual checklist will be to secure a spot as a team at the NCAA Qualifying Meet and potentially a berth into the Championship Finals as a team or with as many individual competitors seeing action on Saturday night with All-American status on the line. 

First touch between the Mids and Pride on Saturday at the Halsey Field House Gymnastics Facility is set for 2 p.m. with the live action video stream and results hosted on the Virtius platform.

What's Ahead -- Navy vs. Springfield
Navy and Springfield will go head-to-head in the first leg of a 2026 home-and-home series as the two teams will meet again in the regular season finale on March 14 in central Massachusetts. The Mids and Pride are scheduled to compete alongside of each other twice over the next two weeks as part of multi-team fields at the West Point Open (Jan. 16-17) and Navy Open (Jan. 24).

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

	Navy	Individual Returning Leader	Springfield	Individual Ret. Leader
All-Around	312.263	Brian Solomon, 75.388	307.063	Kaleb Palacio, 75.225
Floor Exercise	52.788	Benjamin Thurlow Lam, 13.213	52.300	Owen Carney, 13.500
Pommel Horse	50.988	Matthew Petros, 12.913	50.688	Devon Felsenstein, 13.175
Rings	51.938	Aaron Stein, 13.013	50.525	Blaise Rousseau, 13.025
Vault	54.744	Matthew Petros, 13.750	54.688	Kaleb Palacio, 14.075
Parallel Bars	51.431	Matthew Petros, 13.300	49.238	Blaise Rousseau. 12.600
High Bar	52.138	Matthew Petros, 13.213	50.625	Owen Carney, 13.188

Most Recent Navy-Springfield head-to-head meet: March 1, 2025
The No. 9 Navy men's gymnastics team kicked off the final stretch of regular season action on Saturday with a home meet versus No. 14 Springfield. A fast start to the contest by the Mids (4-1, 2-0 ECAC) with a 2.3-point advantage on the floor exercise helped the hosts go wire-to-wire and secure a 311.05 to 309.35 victory over the Pride (0-5, 0-4 ECAC) at the Halsey Field House Gymnastics Facility.

A well-rounded team effort saw four different Mids finish atop the podium as Benjamin Thurlow Lam placed first on the floor exercise, while Brian Solomon did the same on the pommel horse. Isaiah Drake and Jonah Soltz also earned first-place finishes on the rings and parallel bars, respectively.

As a team, Navy scored 53.05 points on the floor exercise, 50.1 on the pommel horse, 51.6 on the rings, 55.0 on the vault, 51.5 on the parallel bars and 49.8 on the high bar.

The biggest momentum swing of the contest came via the parallel bars when Navy out-scored Springfield by 2.2 points to increase its lead to 3.65 through five events. The Mids were dominant from top-to-bottom with its entire lineup going first through fourth. Soltz led the quartet with a 13.15 score courtesy of 8.85 execution points for his 4.2 difficulty-level routine. Vishal Mandava and Matthew Petros went back-to-back in second and third place with respective scores of 12.9 and 12.85. William Champagne came in fourth with a 12.6 outcome. All four Springfield gymnasts scored between 12.5 and 12.2 points.

Returning 2025 Postseason Award Winners
Seven different Midshipmen return this season after collecting postseason accolades in 2025 ...
All-USAG Honorees (top-six finish)
Sophomore Saran Alexander (4th Place - Pommel Horse)
Senior Matthew Petros (1st - High Bar / 3rd - Parallel Bars)
Junior Brian Solomon (3rd - Floor Exercise)
Sophomore Jonah Soltz (3rd - Pommel Horse)
Senior Aaron Stein (2nd - Rings)

All-ECAC Honorees
Junior Julian Galvez (6th - Rings)
Senior Matthew Petros (1st - Pommel Horse / 1st - Parallel Bars)
Junior Brian Solomon (4th - All-Around)
Sophomore Boone Washburn (2nd - High Bar)

NCAA Championship Final Qualifiers
Senior Matthew Petros (13th overall in NCAA on High Bar)
Junior Brian Solomon (12th overall in NCAA in All-Around)

2026 Season at a Glance
Saturday's action versus Springfield is the first of three straight weeks of early season action. This early run of competition includes two multi-team events, the West Point Open on Friday, Jan. 16 and Saturday, Jan. 17, and the Navy Open on Saturday, Jan. 24. After a week off, the bright lights of the 2026 Army-Navy Star Meet will take over Halsey Field House in a 2 p.m. head-to-head competition versus the Black Knights. Just six days later, Air Force joins the fray at the 2026 All-Academy Championship in Fort Worth Texas on Feb. 13. After a break for the Winter Cup (Feb. 20-22), the Mids' regular season slate closes with a pair of tri-meets, first at the University of Illinois with Greenville on Feb. 28 and next at William & Mary with Simpson on March 7. The final action of the 2026 regular season is a head-to-head matchup at Springfield on March 14. 

Following the regular season, Navy will head west to Colorado Springs as Air Force hosts the 2026 USAG Collegiate Championships on the weekend of March 20-21 before battling it out with conference foes on April 4 at the 2026 ECAC Championship at West Point. This year's NCAA Championship will be hosted by the University of Illinois on the weekend of April 17-18.