By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics

Following months of work and preparation, William & Mary's gymnastics teams will open their season Sunday afternoon — the men at home in a virtual meet, the women just up the road in the nation's capital.

The Tribe men will go against Simpson College, one of two new programs in the NCAA's lineup for this season. The women will compete in a quad meet at George Washington with Nebraska and Cornell also in town.

Director of Gymnastics Mike Powell returns nine gymnasts who competed in the NCAA Championships last season — Christian Marsh, Alek Kuzmenchuk, Malcolm Baytop, Aidan Cuy, Will Harrington, Zachary Patrick, Connor Bowman, Sam Lee and Jonathan Irwin.

Marsh advanced to the finals, where he finished 40^th in the parallel bars. Kuzmenchuk won the Elite 90 award for having the highest GPA (3.98) among all gymnasts competing in the NCAA Championships.

"Our depth is a growing strength," Powell said. "Going into last year, we had two guys who had competed a full season before. The year before, we had graduated eight out of 17, and then there was COVID.

"We're now coming back with a little more experience and we've had a couple of years to rebuild from graduating half the team. Now we have a lot more depth in our lineup where it can be next guy up and there's some good healthy competition for spots."

W&M's opener will be a virtual meet, with the Tribe competing at its practice facility and Simpson from its gym in Indianola, Iowa. Each site will have cameras, and judges will be remote.

Kelsey Hinton's women's team dealt with its share of injuries last season, but she's pleased to report that everyone is either healthy or at least close. She has 20 gymnasts on the roster, three more than last season, which makes for more depth.

"That's a big difference from last year," Hinton said. "We've changed our conditioning program and restructured some things in the gym, and we hope that will help our athletes continue to stay healthy. We're very fortunate to have multiple backups on each event.

"We love the healthy competition within our team on each event, and we feel like it really pushes each athlete to be better and reach their potential. They're really pushing themselves hard to put themselves in those uncomfortable situations to make sure they are competing for themselves and their team."

Among the veterans returning are seniors Keaghan Schafer and Amanda Jackson and juniors Sofia Huang and Grace Costello. Jackson missed last season with an injury. Costello competed in the first two meets before her season-ending injury.

Hinton also has high expectations from freshmen Ascha Laird, Michelle Ngo and Hannah Burke.

Although opening on the road, Hinton expects plenty of support in D.C.

"We have a lot of alums who live or work in the D.C. area," Hinton said, "and they're thrilled they're able to come."