Tribe Men Turn in Golden Performance at Virginia State Gymnastics Finals

Tribe Sweeps Top Three Places in Five of the Six Individual Events

03/12/06 6:00PM

WILLLIAMSBURG, VA - With the championship portion of the schedule just around the corner, the College of William and Mary’s 11th-ranked men’s gymnastics squad raised its competitive level for the Virginia State Individual Event Championships by having five individuals claim the six possi-ble golds which were in contention this afternoon at Kaplan Arena.

With the top four scorers from each team advancing in to today’s event finals, the top six marks from today’s competition each earned All-State recognition.

Despite nagging injuries which prevented him from competing in all five of the events he had quali-fied for from yesterday’s action, Tribe senior Nissen-Emery Award Finalist Ramon Jackson (Orlando, FL) made the most of his limited action, taking home the gold on rings and parallel bar events. Jackson, who was performing for the last time in Kaplan Arena’s friendly confines, tied his career best mark by powering to a score of 9.450 on the rings. He entered this weekend’s action ranked 14th nationally in the event, aver-aging better the 9.300 per routine on the season. Jackson is also ranked fourth nationally on his specialty event, the parallel bars, and he was also golden in this event as well, as he posted a solid score of 9.100.

Freshman Sloan Crawford (Burlington, Ontario, Canada) recorded a mild upset in unseating defend-ing state floor champion, teammate David Locke (Natick, MA), by posting a mark of 8.550. Locke, who took second on the floor (8.450), returned the favor on the high bar event, as he dethroned defending state champion, teammate Andrew Hunt (Upper Black Eddy, PA), by spinning to a career best mark of 9.300. Hunt took second on the event (8.400) and also turned in a third place showing on the parallel bars (8.150).

Another promising Tribe freshman, Richard Pearson (Baton Rouge, LA) also struck gold on the after-noon, as his mark of 8.500 paced the field on the pommel horse and just edged classmate James Prim’s (Hendersonville, NC) second place mark of 8.450.

Junior Charles Portz (Humble, TX) rounded out the list of Tribe gold medalists on the afternoon, as he flew to top honors on the vault with a mark of 8.950.

The College will compete its regular season schedule next Sunday, when it will travel to James Madi-son for a tri-meet with the Dukes and Illinois-Chicago. The event is set to start at 3:00 p.m.
The following is the top six from each event:

Top Six Individuals (All-State)
Floor Exercise
1 Sloan Crawford WM 8.550
2 Dave Locke WM 8.450
3 Owen Nicholls WM 8.350
4 Jay Hilbun WM 8.200
5 Marc Scialdone JMU 8.150
6 Scott Flinn JMU 7.950

Pommel Horse
1 Richard Pearson WM 8.500
2 James Prim WM 8.450
3 Stirling VanWinkle JMU 8.350
4T Owen Nicholls WM 8.100
4T Aaron Ingram WM 8.100
6 Scott Flinn JMU 6.950

Still Rings
1 Ramon Jackson WM 9.450
2 Jeff Jaekle WM 9.250
3 James Prim WM 8.950
4 Lucas Buchholz JMU 8.600
5 Scott Flinn JMU 8.200
6 Ben Carter WM 8.150



Vault
1 Chuck Portz WM 8.950
2 Jay Hilbun WM 8.800
3 Sloan Crawford WM 8.550
4 Lucas Buchholz JMU 8.450
5 Brett Wargo JMU 8.300
6 Ben Carter WM 8.150

Parallel Bars
1 Ramon Jackson WM 9.100
2 Owen Nicholls WM 8.400
3 Andrew Hunt WM 8.150
4 Aaron Ingram WM 7.750
5 Lucas Buchholz JMU 7.500
6 Scott Flinn JMU 7.400

Horizontal Bar
1 David Locke WM 9.300
2 Andrew Hunt WM 8.400
3 Rupert Egan WM 8.200
4 Derrick Holbert JMU 8.000
5 Scott Flinn JMU 7.700
6 Mark Scialdone JMU 7.000