The GymCats Showcase is a chance for the fans to get the first look at the Arizona gymnastics team every year. In 2025, that look is from much closer. The changes in McKale Center are just the beginning of changes for the program and the sport.
Arizona introduced its current freshmen just a month after signing next year’s freshmen. It has a new assistant coach. The sport as a whole will undergo some important changes in the code of points this year before experiencing dramatic changes over the next few years as the House settlement is implemented.
First look at the 2025 team
The Wildcats competed in two teams at the annual showcase, but they were not equal. The Red team competed two more routines than the blue team with most of the gymnasts who perform in the leg events clustered on the red team.
Overall, it was a successful meet. The athletes completed 32 of the 34 routines they performed. The two misses were on the bars where Sophie Derr fell twice and Tirzah Wise did not perform her dismount. With 21 days to go until the season opener at the Pacific Coast Challenger, that’s a good percentage of hit routines.
What’s old is new
Fresh blood for the 2025 team doesn’t just come from freshmen. Arizona also has an important contributor returning this season. Elizabeth LaRusso was out last year after having Tommy John surgery.
“Basically, it was a reconstruction of the ligament, and I had a second surgery to transpose the nerve, and it was about a 10-month recovery,” LaRusso said. “It was super hard.”
The senior is an important contributor in the leg events. As a freshman, she competed in four meets and was especially important on vault. As a sophomore, she took a leap forward, competing in all 14 of Arizona’s meets and anchoring the vault lineup 13 times. She set career highs in uneven bars (9.800), vault (9.875), and floor exercise (9.900). At one point she was working on a vault with a 10.0 start value, something that only former GymCat Malia Hargrove has done in recent years.
Her absence last year hurt the GymCats, especially on the leg events. She will focus on floor and vault this year. Court also said that they will only be competing 9.95 SV vaults this year. However, a vaulter who can score in the high 9.8s is valuable.
LaRusso was just happy to be back on the competition floor.
“Oh my gosh,” she said. “It’s just so amazing to think about where I was a year ago today, sitting on the couch with an elbow brace. It’s just so great to be back and healthy and competing.”
She’s especially thankful for her trainer, Sam Yeoman.
“She’s amazing,” LaRusso said. “I probably would not still be a gymnast without her.”
View from the stands
Court mentioned that McKale would look different this year. While everything is in the same general location, changes have been made to the configuration to bring fans closer to the action.
The stands on the west side of McKale are no longer pushed back. They are pulled out just like they are for basketball and volleyball games. The scoring table has been moved to the west side of the arena to accommodate the change. In addition, the vault now starts on the south end of the arena and ends on the north.
“Everything that we did as far as the changes in the arena or about fan engagement,” Court said. “It’s a better seat, even though they’re all same price.”
All the tech
The changes in McKale aren’t just about the way the apparatus are laid out. There are some high-tech changes, too.
Arizona no longer has the old-fashioned scoring cards that the judges raise and spin to show everyone what score a gymnast earned. There is now a triad of monitors near the judges’ table for each apparatus. It shows a picture of the gymnast, her team’s logo, and whether she is performing or being evaluated. When the scores are ready, her overall score and each judge’s score are put on the screens.
The software that runs the system will also be available as the new form of Live Stats for gymnastics events. Arizona fans who followed the team when they competed at California last season will be familiar with the software. It is a huge upgrade built specifically for gymnastics.
“It’s cool,” Court said. “We brought McKale finally into the 21st century. Took a few decades.”
A full coaching staff
Arizona went through the 2024 season with three coaches. This season, they will have a full staff of four after hiring former GymCat Shelby Martinez (née Edwards) during the offseason. It didn’t take long to get her to move on from her position at Carter’s Gymnastics Academy in Mesa, Ariz. where she was a coach, choreographer, and compulsory team director working with levels 2-10.
“John didn’t have to pitch it much, honestly,” Martinez said. “It’s kind of like a dream job. It’s everything that I could have ever—beyond what I could have ever—imagined that I would be doing right now…Me and my husband have always said if an opportunity came up for us, just in Tucson—we love Tucson in general—for either one of us, we would take it. And, yeah, it was a conversation, but it was an easy conversation.”
Martinez brings a huge recommendation to a team that often gives up tenths on vault due to start value: she’s a former Pac-12 co-champion on the vault. If the GymCats cannot match other teams in start value, cleaning up landings and getting everything they can out of their 9.95 vaults is even more important.
“I’ll probably fire myself from being the primary vault coach,” Court joked.
The incoming class signs
Court and his staff signed their class of five gymnasts in mid-November. It comes in as the 20th-ranked class according to College Gym News. That’s the fourth-ranked class in the Big 12, trailing Utah (7), Denver (8), and BYU (17). The other Big 12 team ranked in the top 25 is Arizona State at No. 24.
The class is headlined by two four-star recruits, Delaney Mead and Hillary Puleo. Lily Tisdale and Elle Bragga are both three-star athletes according to CGN. The fifth member of the class is Riley Carman.
It’s a well-balanced group. Bragga and Carman have their highest scores on bars. Mead and Tisdale have shown their best work on floor exercise. Puleo has identical career highs on vault and balance beam. Three of the five have earned career highs of 38+ in the all-around.
The group gathered in Tucson with their families and future teammates the weekend after signing day. That desire to be part of the group was important to Court, as was their ability to excel in the classroom.
“It wasn’t a lot of convincing,” he said. “It wasn’t a super hard sell. It was very mutual on everybody’s part. Academically super bright. Everybody is a high honors, or 4.0 or close to it, all five of them are. And that’s very important to me for the athletes that are on the team. We finished eighth in the nation last year in overall GPA.”
The House settlement
While the talk of academics may seem out-of-place in this day and age, there are some practical reasons why that’s important. Some of them have to do with the House settlement.
The House settlement will likely have its biggest impact on former headcount sports. There are positives and negatives to it in gymnastics as in everything. There won’t be revenue sharing with most teams, including gymnastics. However, the new scholarship rules could actually help the program precisely because gymnasts at Arizona tend to be high-academic athletes.
Under the old rules, gymnastics was a headcount sport. That meant each of its 12 full scholarships went to one athlete. They could not be split between several athletes as happened with equivalency sports like softball or baseball. However, a “full scholarship” didn’t always mean the athletic department was footing the entire bill.
High-academic athletes often qualify for what’s commonly called “merit aid.” That’s aid based on academic achievements and it’s available to all students at the university. In the case of athletes, if they qualified for merit aid, that took the place of some of their athletic scholarships in headcount sports (i.e. football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s volleyball, women’s tennis, and women’s gymnastics). The program didn’t have that remaining athletic aid to give to someone else in those sports because of the definition of headcount sports. It simply counted as a saving for the department, which was now off the hook for part of the athlete’s aid.
Under the new rules, the athletic aid can be broken up among several athletes in all sports. If they qualify for merit aid, it can be used to get them to the status of a full scholarship. The program gets to use all of its athletic aid more often, though. It’s not necessarily lost because the athlete qualified for merit aid. So, there may be more athletes on scholarships—including on the equivalent of full scholarships—in former headcount sports as long as they are also good students.
Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics