Cal Women's Gym Squad Heads to NCAA West Regional Meet

First-year Cal women’s gymnastics coach Geralen Stack-Eaton grew up in Philadelphia, attended college at Alabama, lived briefly in New York City, spent 11 years as an assistant coach at Minnesota and now is experiencing Berkeley.

The 37-year-old, who is filling the significant shoes of former Cal co-coaches Justin Howell and Elisabeth Crandall-Howell (now coaching at Clemson), has high hopes for the Golden Bears going forward.

“Winning a national championship as a coach is a goal of mine,” said Stack-Eaton, who was part of NCAA championships teams at Alabama as an undergrad in 2011 and ’12.

The Bears aren’t considered serious national title threats at this point, ranked 14th nationally headed to the West Regional meet in Tempe, Ariz., which gets started Thursday and concludes on Saturday.

The Bears are part of a four-team competition on Thursday that also includes No. 3 Florida, Penn State and the winner of a play-in dual between Arizona State and Arizona. The top two teams from there advance to Saturday’s regional finals against the two that emerge from a quad meet involving No. 6 Georgia, No. 11 Michigan State, Brigham Young and Southern Utah.

Cal will need to finish among the top two on Saturday to qualify for the NCAA Championship meet on April 16 and 18 in Fort Worth.

Reaching the NCAA nationals won’t be easy.

“It’s going to take a lot. We’d have to have our best (performance), hit at least five out of six dismounts on each of our events,” Stack-Eaton said. “I think that’s really what it comes down to — who sticks the most (landings) at that level.

“If we have the best meet of our life, I do think there is a possibility. But I think other teams do feel the stress a little bit more of they have to move on because they’re expected. Where we’re just going out there and continuing to get our half-tenth better from every person.

“As long as we put everything out on the floor and know we did everything we possibly could, then we’re going to be really happy for this year.”

Cal has two individuals who will challenge to advance to the nationals, even if the Bears don’t get there as a team. Annalise Newman-Achee, a junior from Brooklyn, NY, and Tonya Paulsson, a 22-year-old freshman from Sweden with extensive elite and national team experience, both earned regular-season All-America honors this week.

Stack-Eaton talks in the video at the top of this story about what both athletes have done this season to climb the ranks and what they might be able to achieve this weekend.

Stack-Eaton, fully aware that the Bears are just two years removed from a runner-up finish at nationals, believes the program has potential to compete at the highest level.

“Here at Cal, they have the resources and they want to support the program,” she said. “Because it is Berkeley, it is the No. 1 public institution in the world. So how we recruit is a little bit different, knowing that academic standards are a little bit harder.

“But you can do both at a high level.”

She talks in the video below about what the Bears accomplished this season, setting their culture and improving from start to finish with very little returning in the way of experienced college gymnasts:

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