California women's gymnastics freshman Tonya Paulsson was named the Atlantic Coast Conference's Newcomer of the Week for the fifth time this season on Tuesday afternoon, in what was the final iteration of the weekly conference honors in the 2026 season. Paulsson was also recognized as the conference's top newcomer in Weeks 1, 5, 7 and 9. This is the seventh weekly conference honor awarded to a Golden Bear this season, with Annalise Newman-Achee's Week 1 Gymnast of the Week title and Sage Melkonian's Week 6 Specialist of the Week recognition.
 
Paulsson set career highs on three of the four disciplines this past weekend between the Cal Tri Meet last Friday and the Cal Quad Meet Sunday. Her highlight of the weekend was a 9.975 on uneven bars at the Cal Tri Meet to win the event title and record her eighth bars score that has gone 9.925 or higher this season. She improved that number to nine just two days later when she received a 9.925 at the Cal Quad Meet and added another bars title. Paulsson ties for fifth in the nation with a 9.940 national qualifying score (NQS) on bars. She is the highest rated ACC gymnast and the second-highest ranked gymnast in the West on the event, only behind UCLA's Jordan Chiles.
 
Paulsson also added two more floor exercise titles to her resume this weekend, first matching her career high with a 9.925 at the Cal Tri Meet to help the Bears total their highest floor rotation of the season (49.500). She then set a new personal-best 9.950 on the event at the Cal Quad Meet. Paulsson ties for 36th in the nation with a 9.910 NQS on floor, which is the fourth highest by any ACC gymnast.
 
On beam, Paulsson performed a personal-best 9.900 at the Cal Quad Meet. She helped the Bears put together their best beam rotation of the season, with Cal totaling a 49.425 event score.
 
Paulsson, a freshman from Malmö, Sweden, 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 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. She was named to the ACC's Preseason Newcomer Watchlist in December.
 
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