Tribe Wins 33rd-Straight Title

Gygax Earns Meet’s All-Around Title

03/17/06 8:21PM

Harrisonburg, Va. - The College of William and Mary’s men’s gymnastics team captured its 33rd-straight Virginia State Championship on Saturday afternoon, by posting a team score of 195.55, easily out-distancing runner-up and hosting James Madison University (154.45).

William and Mary head Coach Cliff Gauthier has been at the control’s of the Tribe’s program during all of the 33 titles and has been the College’s mentor for 34-straight years. With the team victory, the Green and Gold improved to 10-6 on the season, while Gauthier’s career victory total moves to a staggering 682 (vs. just 260 losses).

On an afternoon where no scores were coming easy (just four routines in the entire event were judged over an 8.5), Tribe freshman Derek Gygax (Stevensville, Md.) took top honors in the all-around, scoring a six-event total of 46.20. For Gygax, it stands as his first of what promised to be a great many career state championship medals.

Tomorrow the two school’s will met convene again to contest the individual event titles, with the top six finish-ers in each of the respective events earning all-state distinction. The top eight individuals high scores from today’s ac-tion will make of the finals field.

The College has the top three qualifiers on all six events coming into tomorrow’s action. Sophomore Sloan Crawford (Burlington, Ontario) had the meet’s top overall score in winning the floor exercise with a mark of 8.85. Tribe junior David Locke (Natick, Mass.) was second in the same event, with a score of 8.80. Sophomore Aaron In-gram (Holden, Mass.) won the rings with a mark of 8.80, just edging out sophomore teammate James Prim (Hendersonville, N.C.) and his second-place score of 8.75. Prim also posted the top qualifying score of 8.45 to claim the top seed on the pommel horse. Gygax also had the meet’s best mark on the high bar (7.9), while Locke was tops on the vault (8.4) and junior Andrew Hunt (Upper Black Eddy, Pa.) claimed the top mark on the parallel bars (8.45).

The individual event portion of the competition will begin tomorrow at 1:00 pm.