No. 25 GymTerps Host West Chester to Open 2024 Season

No. 25 Maryland (0-0) vs. West Chester (0-0)

January 12, 2024

XFINITY Center

7:00 p.m. ET

B1G+

COLLEGE PARK, MD - The No. 25 Maryland gymnastics team hosts West Chester to open its 2024 season Friday night at the XFINITY Center. The meet is set to begin at 7 p.m., and fans can watch the action live on B1G+.

This week's meet is the To XFINITY and Beyond promotion, featuring:

TOY STORY MEET: Celebrate the movie series with various meetday elements related to the movie.
PIZZA PLANET T-SHIRT GIVEAWAY: The first 100 fans will receive a College Park Pizza Planet Themed T-Shirt.
LEOTARD RAFFLE GIVEAWAY: All fans will be able to enter to win a Maryland Gymnastics leotard from the team!
TESTUDO: Everyone's favorite mascot, Testudo will be in attendance.
POST-MEET AUTOGRAPHS: Stick around post-meet to get your autograph card signed by the GymTerps.

SETTING THE STAGE

The Terps were ranked No. 25 in the WCGA Preseason Coaches Poll and the College Gym News Preseason Poll. The Terps enter the 2024 season looking to reach the NCAA Regionals for the sixth consecutive year (seven including the 2020 season, when Regionals were not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
The Terps welcome back a multitude of key contributors, including graduate student Emma Silberman, who currently ranks ninth in Maryland gymnastics history in career points scored, and junior Josephine Kogler, who received All-Big Ten Second Team honors in 2023. Along with Silberman, sophomore Madeline Komoroski returns as the team's leader in beam scoring. Four of the team's top five scorers return to the lineup for the bars, beam and floor exercise, with Olivia Weir, Taylor Rech, Rhea LeBlanc, Tayler Osterhout, Sierra Kondo and Victoria Gatzendorfer all returning as event starters from last season.
Last season, the GymTerps finished with a 17-8 overall record while finishing with the season ranked No. 23 in Road To Nationals NQS scoring. Maryland produced three of its top-10 highest scores in a single meet last season, peaking with 197.100 at the Maryland Five Meet on March 12. It was just the sixth time in program history that the Terps reached a 197 in a single meet.
West Chester was picked fourth in the 224 Gymnastics East Conference preseason coaches' poll. The Golden Rams have finished third at each of the first two GEC Championships held in 2022 and 2023. They received 40 points in the preseason poll this winter, which landed them fourth in a vote of the conference head coaches.
West Chester returns six All-GEC performers from a year ago, including a pair of runner-ups in the individual competition. Since the inception of the GEC in 2022, West Chester is a perfect 15-0 against fellow GEC members in head-to-head regular season competitions.

Graduate Student Emma Silberman ranks ninth all-time in Maryland gymnastics history in career points scored and was a second-team All-Big Ten selection in 2023

50 Years of Maryland gymnastics

In the 2023-24 season, Maryland gymnastics will celebrate its 50th year of competition.
The team's first year of action came in 1973-74, when head coach Patricia Long assembled a roster of seven student-athletes to practice in the annex gym of Cole Field House. Four head coaches and 49 years later, the Terps fielded a roster of 22 gymnasts that competed on the XFINITY Center court during the 2022-23 season.
The 2023-24 season will serve as a celebration of the progress the program has made since its inception. Read more about The Lost Years of Maryland Gymnastics and how one women's story set up this season's 50th year celebration.

Brett Nelligan enters his fifteenth season as head coach of the Terrapins in 2023-24. Nelligan became the fourth head coach in program history on May 1, 2009, following the retirement of his father, Bob Nelligan.

Checking out the schedule

The GymTerps will host four dual meets this season along with one quad meet at the XFINITY Center in 2024 while hitting the road for eight competitions leading up to the 2024 B1G Championships in East Lansing, MI.
The Terps will begin competition with back-to-back home meets, starting the season with a dual meet against West Chester on Friday, Jan. 12, followed by the first Big Ten meet of the season against Rutgers on Friday, Jan. 19. Nelligan's squad hits the road for the first time in 2024 with an away dual against Minnesota on Saturday, Jan. 27. Two more home meets follow, with the GymTerps hosting Ohio State on Sunday, Feb. 4 and Nebraska on Saturday, Feb. 10.
Big Ten competition concludes with a pair of road meets, starting with the team's final Big Ten dual meet against Michigan State on Sunday, Feb. 18. Maryland closes out Big Ten competition at the annual Big Five Meet on Saturday, Feb. 24 hosted by Penn State in State College, PA. In the five-way meet, Maryland will compete against the hosting Nittany Lions, along with Illinois, Iowa and Michigan.
In March, the GymTerps will host their final home event of the season in a quad meet against Central Michigan, George Washington and William & Mary on Friday, March 1. A quartet of road meets round out non-conference competition, as the GymTerps travel to New Haven, CT to compete in a quad meet against Yale, Southern Connecticut State and New Hampshire at the Yale University campus. Another quad meet follows at Temple University in Philadelphia on Thursday, March 7 as Maryland competes against the Owls, along with North Carolina State and Penn.
The GymTerps have their final dual competition of the campaign on the road against in-state rival Towson on Sunday, March 10. Maryland rounds out the regular season with the Collegiate Classic in Nashville, TN on Saturday, March 16 to close out the regular season. Postseason competition begins with the Big Ten Championships on Saturday, March 23 in East Lansing, MI. The NCAA Regional meets will take place between April 3 and 7, where Maryland hopes to improve upon its program-best 196.675 score from 2023. The NCAA semis and finals will be held in Fort Worth, TX between April 18 and 20.

Josephine Kogler earned Second Team All-Big Ten honors after a stellar 2023 on beam and vault.

Read all about it!

Meets in College Park will feature a number of promotions throughout the 2024 season, including the LGBTQ+ Pride Celebration on Jan. 19, the Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Meet on Feb. 4, the Mental Health Meet on Feb. 10 and Senior Night on March 1. The full promotional schedule can be found here.
Interested in hosting a party at a Maryland Gymnastics meet? Check out the table below to see the different party packages offered! For more information, email Ella Wilson at ewilso14@terpmail.umd.edu.
Fans looking for group experiences can find that information here.