Navy Captures Gymnastics Star at Home

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – With the bright lights shining with the 2024 Star on the line, the Navy men's gymnastics team started out fast and never looked back as it cruised to a 12.6-point victory over Army, 390.1-377.5 on Saturday afternoon. 

The Mids bolted out to a 4.6-point edge following strong efforts on the floor exercise and pommel horse before adding points to their lead over the Black Knights on the rings and vault. A 1.15-point swing on the parallel bars in favor of Army pulled the visitors closer before Navy concluded the meet and Star win at Halsey Field House with a dominant 7.0-point difference on the final event of the competition, the high bar.

Individually, Matthew Petros led a quartet of Midshipmen that placed first overall in events on Saturday as he paced the field for his efforts on the vault and parallel bars. Syam Buradagunta, Riley Rose and Caleb Hickey finished first on the floor exercise, rings and high bar, respectively. 

\As a team, Navy scored 64.25 points on the floor exercise, 63.7 on pommel horse, 64.5 on the rings, 70.9 on the vault, 63.15 on the parallel bars and 63.6 on the high bar.

The drama of Army-Navy got keyed up early when 2023 NCAA All-Around All-American Isaiah Drake was scratched from the starting lineup on multiple events as he suffered an injury during Friday's practice and was unable to heal up in time for Saturday's meet. With Drake, Navy's leading scorer on the rings, vault and parallel bars, out of commission, the Mids had to lean on a younger lineup in addition to stretching its athletes into additional events. 

The late lineup changes didn't seem to faze Navy's gymnasts as they posted four of the top-five scores on Saturday's first event, the floor exercise. Going out last for the Mids, Buradagunta performed the hardest routine with a 5.5-point level of difficulty and paired it with an 8.0 execution score and an important 0.1-point stick bonus for a first-place score of 13.6. After Army's Franco Peirano tallied 13.35 points to finish runner-up, sophomore Danilo Viciana rounded out the top-three with a 13.2-point result. A pair of first-time Army-Navy competitors, Matthew Rosendahl and Colby Prince proved up for the task as they posted matching 13.15 scores that tied for fourth place.

A similar alignment of four Mids in the top-five came through in the ensuing event, the pommel horse. While Army's Maddox Pabellon paced the field, Navy's depth was showcased with strong routine-after-strong routine. Senior pommel anchor Ronan McQuillan recorded a team-high 13.1 score to hold off his teammate Petros by 0.05 points as the sophomore came in third at 13.05. Competing in his first Star Meet, Brian Solomon earned an 8.2-point execution score for his 4.7-point difficulty routine for a 12.9-point final score that ranked fourth overall. Buradagunta tallied 12.6 points for his effort to finish fifth.

Ahead 127.95 to 123.35 after two rotations, Navy was able to add 0.9 points to its advantage in a highly-competitive rings contest. Rose took the top-honors for rings on Saturday with career-best score of 13.2. Fellow junior William Champagne gave the Mids back-to-back career-high performances as he posted a 13.0 for his routine. Erik Engelke valiantly fought his way into a three-way tie with Army's Blaze Kennedy and Jaden Blank with identical 12.85 scores. Engelke survived an equipment malfunction as his grip snapped in the final seconds of his routine and forced him to gather himself, gear up again and do the entire same routine just five minutes later for an official score.

The Mids added 1.25 points to their lead on the vault as they outscored the Black Knights for the fourth straight event. The top of the leaderboard was extremely tightly-packed as Petros tied for the event win with Army's Johnathan Pinc as they both turned in 14.5-point vaults. Just 0.05 points back, freshman Daniel Gurevich found himself in a tie for third place with Franco Peirano at 14.45. Champagne notched his second-straight top-five as he garnered 14.15 points for his vault.

With the score 263.35 to 256.60 in favor of Navy, Army won its first event of the meet with their turn on the parallel bars. The Black Knights' depth aided their victory with three gymnasts in the top-five, though Petros was the overall event winner with a significant, 0.15-point margin of victory, 13.65 to 13.5 over Army's Noah Duran. Hickey, the Mids' anchor on the p-bars, registered a 13.35 score to claim third place in his final Army-Navy competition. Vishal Mandava nearly cracked the top-five as he finished sixth with a 13.0-point effort.

Standing 5.6 points clear of the Black Knights, the Mids sealed the victory with a dominant 7.0-point advantage on the high bar. Strong from start-to-finish in all five of its routines Navy saw its gymnasts finish first through fourth, as well as sixth overall. The senior duo of Hickey and Buradagunta showed the way with respective scores of 13.0 and 12.9 to go one-two in the standings. Mandava aced his routine with a 12.7 score that ranked third in the field. Closing out the entire meet with routine number 30 for Navy, Engelke stuck his landing to uproarious applause from the Navy fanbase to net 12.6 points and finish fourth overall.

"Our seniors were unbelievable," exclaimed Simons. "It doesn't get any bigger than Army-Navy, but then you throw Senior Day on top of it, today was so memorable for so many reasons. To see our firsties out there leading the way and did they ever lead; plain and simple. Those seven guys on the competitive floor; they led. The rest of the team leaned on them. There was no way they were going to graduate without that third star. Three-for-three for our seniors in Star Meets is tremendous. Congratulations to them!

"Our freshmen stepped up big time today. To compete in their first-ever Star Meets, Brian and Daniel did great. To go out in this environment and swing a pommel horse routine, which is quite arguably the hardest event; Brian was just a stud. Daniel nailed his vault as well. The future is bright for Navy Men's Gymnastics."

The victory by Navy was the sixth straight over Army in the men's gymnastics Star rivalry and tightens the all-time series to 45-41-2 in favor of the Black Knights.