William and Mary Place Second At USA Gymnastics Collegiate Championships

Squad advances Six Athletes to 11 Event Finals

03/29/08 11:00AM

Springfield, Mass. - The College of William and Mary’s 11th-ranked men’s gymnastics squad came within a fractions of a point of claiming its seventh-straight USA Gymnastics Collegiate Championship, but were just edged out at the finish by a determined group from the United States Naval Academy, who claimed the title with a team score of 339.300 while the Tribe finished second (338.450) at the event which finished late Friday evening in Springfield College’s Blake Arena.

The five-team event was one that the College had now won a record 12 times (in the past 15 years) since the first meet was held after the 1994 season. Navy’s victory on Friday evening snapped a Tribe streak of seven-straight champion-ships, dating back to the 2001 season. The Air Force Academy finished a distant third (335.100), while hosting Spring-field (326.200) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (317.00) rounded out the field in fourth and fifth, respectively.

While the team victory escaped the College, the program will still forward six athletes into a total of 11 individual event finals that will be competed this evening (Saturday), starting at 7:00 p.m.

Tribe sophomore Derek Gygax (Stevensville, Md.) already pocketed the team’s first USAG Collegiate All-American honor, as he finished third in the all-around with a six-event total of 82.950.

The Tribe athletes performing this evening are as follows; Dave Locke (Natick, Mass.) – Floor exercise, vault and high bar; Gygax – floor exercise; James Prim (Hendersonville, NC) – pommel horse, parallel bars; Aaron Ingram (Paxton, Mass.) – pommel horse and parallel bars; Alex Egerter (Sacramento, Calif.) – vault; and Andrew Hunt (Upper Black Eddy, Pa.) – high bar.

Locke will be the returning champion on the vault event, while Hunt, Gygax and Ingram all return as former USAG Colle-giate all-Americans.