Tribe Men’s Gymnastics Rolls to Season Best Team Total In Winning Dual Meet at MIT

W&M Claims All-Six Individual Event Titles

02/23/08 8:36PM

Cambridge, Mass. - The College of William and Mary’s men’s gymnastics squad had a break-out af-ternoon in posting a team-season best score of 341.15 in downing hosting Massachusetts Institute of Technology in dual meet ac-tion on Saturday.

The win improves the Tribe’s record to 3-2 on the young season, while the team score is more than an eight-point im-provement over its previous season best (333.10 set during the season opener at Navy on January 26th). MIT, who is ranked 17th nationally, turned in a team-score of 322.7.

Not surprisingly, the College established team season highs on five of the six events, with the most dramatic improvement coming on the pommel horse where the squad posted a total of 55.3 gained nearly four points on its previous season standard (51.05 set in the last meet at University of Illinois-Chicago).

Individually, the Tribe claimed all six event titles, led by junior James Prim (Hendersonville, N.C.) and freshman Alex Egerter (Sacramento, Calif.), who each claimed a pair of golds on the afternoon. Prim’s mark of 14.25 on the pommel was per-sonal and team-season best and led what was a Tribe sweep, as the team claimed the top four places on the event. Egerter led an even more impressive team charge on the vault, as his mark of 15.35 was the top performance in the event that saw the College claim the top six spots. Prim also had a golden performance on the rings, where he established another personal-season best with a mark of 15.3, while Egerter’s mark of 14.25 on the high bar paced the field.

Senior tri-captain Dave Locke (Natick, Mass.) also had a standout afternoon, as he captured the floor exercise with a per-sonal season best score of 15.15. Locke was just a flinch away from gold on an additional three events, as he finished second vault (15.30), parallel bars (14.45) and high bar (14.00). Fellow senior tri-captain Aaron Ingram (Paxton, Mass.) turned in the top performance on the parallel bars with a personal-season best score of 14.60. Ingram has been battling several nagging injuries in the early season and his ability to continue to progress will be crucial to the remainder of the College’s season.

The Tribe will be in action again tomorrow when it makes the short trip to Springfield, Mass., to compete against Spring-field College and the University of Illinois-Chicago. The meet is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m.