With the strong start, No.2 Cal Women's Gymnastics have reached another level
Sophomore eMjae Frazier is now halfway to a career "Gym Slam" after earning a perfect 10 on beam and rewriting her own program record all-around score!
After two weeks of competition in NCAA women's gymnastics, Cal might have the best all-around gymnast in the country in 2024!
Better yet, there are two California Golden Bears who can make that claim: junior Mya Lauzon and sophomore eMjae Frazier, who Cal fans might recognize as one of three students in the (finally!) new school ad this year (with the voiceover by former Mic Woman Kate Scott).
With a tough early season schedule designed to get the Bears accustomed to the Pac-12 and NCAA Championships-like atmosphere from a busy quad meet to competing on platforms, Cal Women's Gymnastics owns the second-best meet score in the country already with a clear path to improve upon it.
From West Valley City, Utah which will again serve as the site of the final Pac-12 Gymnastics Championships in late March, Cal posted a team score of 197.875 last Saturday to claim session 3 of the very competitive Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad. Cal is just a touch behind No.1 Oklahoma, two-times reigning NCAA team champion, who got a 197.900 score. Mathematically, the 0.025 difference is the smallest increment in possible team score right now. By average team score, which is not quite how teams will eventually be ranked via the National Qualifying Score (NQS) that requires more results, Cal is currently the 2nd-ranked squad in the country for the first time in program history.
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1746595328906916014
Leading the way for the Bears are the two fantastic all-around performances from sophomore eMjae Frazier and junior Mya Lauzon, who earned near-perfect (40.0 is that impossible perfection, of course) all-around scores of 39.775 and 39.750, respectively. Lauzon's 39.750 matched the previous Cal record, set by eMjae Frazier last year in her freshman campaign. Yes, that 39.775 by Frazier is the new record...for this week, at least.
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1746386547300274327
Cal’s Week 2 meet was on the ACCN, which is accessible for those with ESPN+ subscription (link to WatchESPN). The full meet is also (for now) available on YouTube.
Cal fans can also check out the highlight reel posted by Cal Women's Gymnastics on Social.
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1747719946900222208
"Gym Slam" is the rare feat of earning perfect 10s on all four apparatus in one's collegiate gymnastic career. Only 17 gymnasts have earned that honor with Utah's Missy Marlowe, better known to Cal gymnastic fans as the mother of recent alumna Milan Clausi, being the first to achieve it in 1992. Two meets into her sophomore season, eMjae Frazier is now halfway to that achievement. Frazier was perfect on the balance beam, after being the first (and so far only) Cal Bear to earn a perfect 10 on floor exercise last year. Check out her routine below.
eMjae Frazer - perfect 10 on beam
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1746582522430120093
Not too coincidentally, the first perfect 10 on balance beam was achieved last year by now-junior Mya Lauzon. With the meet being scored by two judges for each apparatus (each gymnast's score is the average of the two), Lauzon actually also earned two perfect 10s in the same meet. A judge each deemed Lauzon's floor and vault routines to be perfect, only for the other judge to score it a 9.95.
You can judge for yourself.
Mya Lauzon - near perfect (9.975) on floor
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1746380281031135566
Mya Lauzon - near perfect (9.975) on vault
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1746357876921417878
By average all-around score, Mya Lauzon leads the nation after two meets with 39.675. The junior has blossomed to become a great team leader in and out of the gym, as recently documented by this article.
A quick glance at the NCAA gymnastics landscape for 2024 also shows the vacuum for Lauzon and Frazier to take over as the new queen. Florida's superstar gymnast, Trinity Thomas who is the only gymnast in history to achieve the Gym Slam feat twice, has graduated. With 2024 being an Olympic year, UCLA's USA Olympian Jordan Chiles (NCAA all-around runner-up) has opted to take a redshirt year. Oregon State's fellow USA Olympian Jade Carey will manage her workload by only competing on beam and bars. Sure, Utah's Maile O'Keefe, who won the NCAA all-around title last year, is back, but the two Cal Bears can certainly be worthy challengers this season.
As a team, Cal also set a new school record on vault, registering a 49.525 on what is arguably their weakest rotation. College vault is arguably the most bland of the four events due to 95% of the gymnasts doing either a full Yurchenko (9.95 starting value) or 1.5 Yurchenko (10.0 starting value). Bears currently have four of the six vaults with the 10.0 starting value. They might have all 10.0 starting values by the end of the year (some gymnasts will attempt the harder skills later in the season) if you are looking for another reason to be very excited about this season.
One of the new 10.0 starting value vaults to the lineup is freshman Kyen Mayhew. Mayhew was making her collegiate debut this past week after being held out of the season-opening Mean Girls Super 16 meet in Las Vegas.
Kyen Mayhew debut
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1746356025018794149
Mayhew will likely be a specialist this season, contributing on vault and floor (the debut of which did not go as well since it included a fall, but Cal did not need to count it).
Since Justin Howell and Elizabeth Crandall-Howell took over the program after it was saved from the chopping block in 2010, the "one day better" motto has manifested both via the existing student-athlete improving over their four years in Berkeley but also in the talent of gymnasts willing to join the program. The Howells have built a great support system but also targeted student-athletes who are mentally tough both in the gym and in the classroom.
Kyen Mayhew and fellow freshman Annalise Newman-Achee are both expected to be impact members. Cal can also get some additional boosts from other sophomores like Jayden Silvers (who had a great exhibition vault in the season opener) and Casey Brown (already in the vault lineup).
Golden Bears are so talented that senior Andi Li, who had been the most consistent all-around gymnast in program history before this year, may be reduced to just a specialist role.
A team score steadily in the 198 is the desired eventual score for an NCAA team national champion. Assuming that Lauzon and Frazier can maintain their all-around score at around 39.75 each and add in a reasonable 39.3 from junior Maddie Williams as a 3rd all-arounder, Cal would just need to average 9.9 in the rest of the 8 counting scores to get to 198. That is certainly achievable. Before 2023, Cal had only surpassed 198 once in program history. They passed that mark three times in the last six meets (including the last two home meets) in 2023 (granted, postseason scores are suppressed by more judges finding faults). Golden Bears could easily shatter that mark.
Of course, consistency and being able to withstand the week-to-week grind of a long season are both major challenges to any season. Then again, Cal already showed a great bounce back on the balance beam between their week 1 and week 2 performances. You can watch the full meet (or jump around to the Cal routines) of the season opener Super 16 below.
Cal started out fantastically on bars but wobbled on beam. Nonetheless, the Golden Bears still defeated their rival UCLA Bruins
Be sure to go to Haas to check out this incredible and historic Cal Women's Gymnastics squad when you can! In April, Cal will host an NCAA Regional as well when some of the other top gymnasts around the country will visit Berkeley. Cal won their first Regional Final in program history last year in Pittsburgh but will have the home gym advantage to repeat that feat this season.
Outright Pac-12 regular season title (Cal has shared it in recent years) and a final breakthrough at the Pac-12 Championships would be nice milestones to achieve before another NCAA Championships at Fort Worth, TX on April 18th (semifinal) and 20th (Four on the Floor). After twice finishing 7th overall in the country, Cal is still seeking the program’s first final session.
One can almost be certain that more program history will be made at Haas this year, both on the individual and the team level.
Week 3 will see Cal Women's Gymnastics in their first Pac-12 dual of the season at Washington this Saturday. The Cal home opener against Jade Carey and the Oregon State Beaver will be the following Saturday. A 50% off code is available below according to their Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/calwgym/p/C2QxHozpqnI/
Go watch Cal Women’s Gymnastics continuing to rewrite the program record book in 2024!
So great! My daughters all do gymnastics, gotta get them out to Cal for a meet!
I’m so excited about this team and stars eMjae and Mya but following their journey on Instagram and YouTube it’s really easy to root for the entire team.
There aren’t that many meets so if you have a chance make your way over to Haas (I’m going to see them take on UCLA at Pauley myself) - gymnastic meets are so much fun and at our level they’re elite competition too.