California women's gymnastics will open the 2026 campaign at the Best of the West Quad Meet, hosted by Washington on Saturday. The Golden Bears will meet a trio of former conference foes in the host Huskies, UCLA Bruins and Oregon State Beavers.
 
The season opener will begin at 3 p.m. PT at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle. The meet will be streamed live on B1G+ network and live scoring will be available on Virtius.
 
BEST OF THE WEST (WASHINGTON QUAD MEET)
Date: Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026
Time: 3 p.m. PT                                                                 
Location: Alaska Airlines Arena | Seattle, WA
Streaming/TV: B1G+ Network
 
THE STACK-EATON ERA HAS ARRIVED
This will mark the Bears' first competition with head coach Geralen Stack-Eaton at the helm. Stack-Eaton, a first-time head coach, was named the 14th leader of the Cal women's gymnastics program on June 12, 2025. Prior to Cal, she was an assistant coach at Minnesota for 11 seasons. Stack-Eaton had a decorated career as a gymnast for Alabama, where she led the Crimson Tide to back-to-back NCAA championships in 2011 and 2012. She collected two straight individual national titles as well winning the floor exercise championship in 2011 and a balance beam championship in 2012. The 2012 NCAA DI Gymnast of the Year earned 12 All-America selections during her four-year career, including first-team honors in the all-around, vault, uneven bars, and floor exercise.
 
ACC YEAR TWO ON THE HORIZON
Cal enters year two in the ACC as the conference's reigning regular-season champions. In their inaugural season in 2025, the Bears posted a perfect 6-0 conference mark and saw Mya Lauzon tabbed ACC Gymnast of the Year, the first gymnast in Cal history to receive the conference's top individual honor. Cal gymnasts won nine of the 11 ACC Gymnast of the Week Awards, six of which were claimed by Lauzon, and all four of the Bears' all-arounders won the award at least once. Cal tallied 13 All-ACC honors and four ACC individual event titles in addition to placing second at the ACC Championships to tie its highest finish in a conference championship in program history. The Bears were picked to finish third in the 2026 ACC Preseason Coaches Poll.
 
PAULSSON NAMED TO ACC PRESEASON NEWCOMER WATCHLIST
Tonya Paulsson, a freshman from Malmo, Sweden, was named to the ACC Preseason Newcomer Watchlist. She will look to make her collegiate debut this season for the Bears. Paulsson has been a member of the Swedish National Team since 2019 and won the Sweden all-around championship in back-to-back seasons in 2019 and 2020, in addition to capturing balance beam and floor exercise titles and a silver medal on uneven bars in 2020. Paulsson is a two-time European all-around finalist (2021 & 2023) and helped lead Team Sweden to the European Championship final in 2023. In 2024, she had a gold-medal performance on balance beam and floor exercise and a silver-medal performance on uneven bars at the World Challenge Cup of Szombathely.
 
MELKONIAN, NEWMAN-ACHEE GET ACC PRESEASON WATCHLIST NODS
Returners Sage Melkonian and Annalise Newman-Achee were both named to the ACC Preseason Watchlist.
 
Newman-Achee, a junior from Brooklyn, New York, made her collegiate debut last season swinging uneven bars and broke her way into the Bears' everyday rotation. She competed 11 uneven bars routines and had two podium finishes. Ten of her routines scored a 9.825 or better, including a career-high 9.95 at the 2025 ACC Championships to clinch an All-Championship team recognition.
 
Melkonian, a sophomore from Mission Viejo, looks to make her collegiate competition debut in the 2026 season. She competed a handful of exhibition routines as a freshman last year and was named a WCGA Scholastic All-American for her excellent work in the classroom. Prior to Cal, Melkonian was a two-time national qualifier (2022 & 2023).
 
BEARS CHECK IN AT NO. 20 IN WCGA PRESEASON POLL
The California women's gymnastics program checks in at No. 20 in the Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA) Preseason Poll, announced by the organization on Dec. 16, 2025. This is first-year head coach Geralen Stack-Eaton's inaugural top-20 ranking as head of a program.
 
The Golden Bears earned 880 points in the national preseason poll and are the third-ranked Atlantic Coast Conference team. Five of the ACC's six women's gymnastics programs are ranked in the poll as part of the nation's top 36 teams heading into the 2026 season. Cal is set to face 12 of the 36 ranked teams this season, including three top-10 programs: No. 4 UCLA, No. 6 Michigan State and No. 9 Kentucky.
 
STAY POSTED
For further coverage of Cal women's gymnastics, follow the Bears on X (@CalWGym), Instagram (@calwgym) and Facebook (/calwgym/).