Showing few jitters in her first national tournament appearance,
Grand Canyon University Club Gymnastics freshman
Aida Friesen finished in 5
th place in Level 9 (the tournament's highest level) in the Women's Artistic Gymnastics category at the 2024 National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs National Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her 37.6 score in the all-around final also placed her 24
th among all 1150 females in the competition. Friesen was part of an nine-gymnast contingent from GCU that made the program's 2
nd nationals appearance ever. Friesen,
Lopes' Student Leader Julia Butler, sophomore
Emma Mabini and fellow freshman
Khylie Young-Garayt all posted high enough scores in the prelims in their respective events to qualify for Saturday's finals in a four-day tournament that featured nearly 1600 gymnasts overall.
If Friesen was overwhelmed at all by the magnitude of the event, it was evident to no one. From the outset, the native of Littleton, Colorado, looked right at home in nearly every event she participated in during the prelim rounds. In Level 9, Friesen was tops in the floor exercise, 2
nd in both the uneven bars and the beam, and just out of the top 20 in the vault, all placing her 1
st all-around with an overall score of 37.9 (which put her 14
th among all females in the competition at the end of preliminaries). In Saturday's final, Friesen placed 5
th in the bars, 6
th in beam and 7
th in floor to wind up 5
th all around, just missing the top 20 overall in the tournament by five-hundredths of a point.
GCU's Adia Friesen on the beam at NAIGC Nationals
Meanwhile, in her second straight trip to the tournament, Butler overcame a tough start in the vault during prelims to still reach the finals and excel there. Butler ranked between 11
th and 14
th in the beam, bars and floor exercise during the prelims, which were good enough to place her 14
th all around in Level 9 heading to Saturday's final rounds. Once there, the Lopes' junior stayed consistent, nearly hitting the top 10 in beam, and finishing 17
th in Level 9 with a finishing score of 35.05.
Both making their first appearances on the national college stage, Young-Garayt and Mabini both competed in the Platinum category, both finding their way to the finals in specific events. While not qualifying for the finals in the all-around, Mabini (9.675) and Young-Garayt (9.625) were stellar on the beam in the prelims, both placing in the top 17 to head to the finals, and Young-Garayt narrowly missed qualifying for Saturday's final in the vault as well. In the final round, Young-Garayt stuck a 9.6 on the beam, earning her 7
th in Platinum, and just missing a top-4 finish by .025 of a point.
"Adia has a lot of high-level experience and has been to big tournaments before, so we weren't surprised by how well she did," said Butler. "She just had to adjust to her surroundings in Albuquerque, and she did that well. Adia (and I) reaching the Level 9 finals should help attract a lot more high-level athletes to the program, because usually those types of athletes coming out of high school either have to go NCAA Division 1 or just quit. This shows that there's an alternative to those two options."
The Lopes' top results from the tournament are listed below:
