Women's Gymnastics Heads To GEC Championships Saturday Afternoon

SESSION 1 WEB STREAM
SESSION 1 LIVE STATS
TICKETS
MEET NOTES

THE STORYLINE
West Chester University heads to 2026 Gymnastics East Conference Championship meet this weekend in Upstate New York on the campus of Cornell University. The Golden Rams have 11 gymnasts on this year's roster who have experience competiting at the conference meet over the last three years. That experience will be called upon if the Golden Rams are going to better the preseason prediction of a seventh-place showing is where they finished last March.

The fifth edition of the Gymnastics East Conference Championships is shaping up to be one of the most competitive. Pennsylvania is the odds-on favorite heading into the meet to claim their fifth consecutive team title. However, there are schools who will give the Quakers a run. Three other Ivy League teams will have a say before it is all said and done. Brown, Cornell and Yale are all within striking distance. Yale has finished runner-up to Penn in each of the last three years. Brown was runner-up to Penn the first year of the conference (2022) while West Chester finished third overall the first two years of the conference meet (2022, 2023).

West Chester will compete in the first session, which gets under way at 12 p.m. on Saturday. The Golden Rams will rotate with University of Bridgeport, William & Mary and Southern Connecticut State University. The evening session will consist of the four Ivy League schools going head-to-head. The final standings will be determined by each school's score, regardless of which session they competed. All of the individual standings will also be determined the same way.

West Chester was 4-5 against GEC schools this winter, having beaten Cornell twice, William & Mary and Bridgeport. The Golden Rams lost to Penn three times, and Bridgeport and Yale once each. Overall, West Chester finished with a 7-10 record against all opponents.

THREE WEST CHESTER GYMNASTS EARN ALL-GEC
West Chester University landed three gymnasts on the 2026 All-Gymnastics East Conference squad. Seniors Sarah Eskew and Anna Lacey and sophomore Tatum McGuinn were all recognized by the GEC.
Gymnasts are named to the first team by finishing among the top six National Qualifying Scores in the conference, including ties, while second team honors are awarded to the next six NQS scores, including ties.

Lacey's 9.825 NQS on the floor landed her on the conference's first team. Twice this year, Lacey hit a career-high score of 9.900. She won, or tied for first on the floor exercise, four times during the regular season. This is her first all-conference accolade of her career.

Eskew's 9.710 NQS was good for second team all-conference on the uneven bars where she starred all winter for the Golden Rams. Eskew won the uneven bars event four times during the season as well. She is making her second appearance on the All-GEC squad on the bars and third overall in her four years in college. She has been named All-GEC on the vault twice in her college career.

McGuinn earned second team all-conference on the balance beam with an NQS score of 9.740. She won, or tied for first in the beam event, four times during the winter season as well. She hit a career-high of 9.825 at home against SUNY-Cortland in January. This is the local product's first appearance on the All-GEC squad.

WEST CHESTER AT THE GEC CHAMPIONSHIPS
    2025    192.275 (7th place)
    2024    193.800 (6th place)
    2023    194.075 (3rd place)
    2022    195.250 (3rd place) - highest team score in school history.

CURRENT TEAM MEMBERS AT THE GEC CHAMPIONSHIPS
 

2025	Vault	Uneven Bars	Balance Beam	Floor Exercise
	Keane (36th)	Ringas (15th)	Keane (T, 2nd)	Keener (12th)
		Vargo (37th)	Kelly (T, 2nd)	Kelly (35th)
		Eskew (41st)	Stoner (12th)	Stoner (41st)
			McGuinn (22nd)

 

2024	Vault	Uneven Bars	Balance Beam	Floor Exercise	All-Around
	Eskew (T, 7th)	Eskew (T, 3rd)	Eskew (22nd)	Eskew (28th)	Eskew (5th)
	Gruber (37th)	Ringas (28th)	Keane (30th)
		Shelton (41st)

 

2023	Vault	Uneven Bars	Balance Beam	Floor  Exercise
	Eskew (T, 2nd)	Eskew (48th)	Lacey (46th)	Lacey (23rd)

NOTE: Senior Sarah Eskew is the only member of West Chester's gymnastics roster to have competed in the conference championships all three previous seasons. She will be making her fourth and final appearance this weekend.
                
HISTORY IS MADE
West Chester University head coach Barbara Cordova won her 177th career meet last Saturday in the team's regular-season finale against Cornell University and that tied her former head coach and mentor, Sandy Thielz, for the most victories in a coaching career at West Chester University. Together, Cordova and Thielz have 354 of the school's 372 victories since 1962.

Thielz authored an all-time record of 177-88-1 (.670) during her 21-year career at the helm of the Golden Rams from 1974 through 1995. Cordova, who has held the reigns of the program since 2008, has an all-time record of 177-160 in her 18 years.