William and Mary Men Hold No. 11 Position In Most Recent NCAA Gymnastics Poll

Tribe Returns to Action for Final Home Meet of Regular Season

03/20/08 10:00PM

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - In the most recent poll released by the NCAA, the College of William and Mary men’s gymnastics squad held down the No. 11 position in the national rankings, with a team average of 343.800.

Fighting to earn its fifth invitation to the NCAA Team Championships in the last seven seasons, the Tribe’s current placement keeps them in the mix for a position in the 12-team championship field (as the top 12 in the final national poll are invited).

The squad will be looking to go big in its final home event of the regular season, as the team will host a tri-meet with Navy and Temple tomorrow evening in Kaplan Arena (starting at 7:00 pm). The College was lights out in its last action inside of Kaplan Arena, as it set the school’s season standard with a huge team score of 348.60. Friday’s action will be the last appearance for four Tribe’s seniors, David Locke (Natick, Mass.), Aaron Ingram (Paxton, Mass.), Andrew Hunt (Upper Black Eddy, Pa.) and Devin DeBacker (Stafford, Texas).

William and Mary should be well rested for its last home tilt, as its last action was two weeks ago (March 8th), when it finished second in a tri-meet at Penn State. In the action at PSU, Locke and freshman Andy Hunter (Tallahassee, Fla.) had big afternoons which earned them Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Gymnast of the Week and Rookie of the Week accolades. Locke turned in solid performances on four. Combining spectacular tumbling combinations he scored a 15.05 to earn a second place on floor exercise. He followed that with scores of 15.45 on vault, 13.9 on parallel bars and 14.3 on horizontal bar to finish in the top five, helping the Tribe (338.9) outscore Navy (336.7) to finish second behind national power and second-ranked Penn State (357.7). Hunter earned his honor by hitting three solid routines at the event. Hit with the flu William & Mary was forced to compete short one performer on both pommel horse and rings and got two strong lead off performances from Hunter. He counted on all three events for the tribe (pommel horse/13.55), (rings/13.35), (parallel bars/13.9).