Week 18 Review: National Championships
- Breeze
- 22 hours ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 18 hours ago
GymACT 2025 Season: week 18
Weekend of May 11
Last Saturday, May 10th, 2025, was the 5th GymACT National Championships. It was once held in conjunction with the USAGymnastics Men’s Development Program National Championships, this time at the Mountain America Expo Center, in Salt Lake City, UT.
Quick links to this edition’s topics:
Stick Masters - team stuck landings
From the coaches - updates from individual GymACT programs
College bound camps - East and West Summer Camps
Gymnast of the week - nominations and selections
Up next: upcoming events
Week 18 summary
What happened, where and when?
GymACT Nationals, May 10th, 2025, Mountain America Expo Center, Salt Lake City, UT.
5th GymACT National Championships (5-up, 4 count format): Arizona State (🏆307.30), Minnesota (302.60), Bay Area Bandits (296.65), Washington (293.10), Indi-hio (288.50), Iowa (287.45), Temple (286.70), Rocky Mountain (281.15), NY Alliance (276.95)
2nd GymACT Commissioner’s Cup (3-up, 3 count format): Georgia United (🏆209.85), Northern Illinois (206.75), SC United (205.40), Florida Storm (204.75), Texas Armadillos (197.00), KC United (114.60)
TRUE champions regardless of the results.
It was one of the most exciting meets ever; so much fun to watch the teams battle it out from start to finish. Arizona State was on FIRE!!! Their meet mimicked their season, started well (but not great), but overcame their struggles, found their groove and DOMINATED to the finish, bringing back home the team trophy (well, the plaque anyway). Minnesota, second place, looked amazing as always but just couldn't produce the scores to overcome the sun devils. HUGE congrats to Bay Area Bandits, who put on a helluva season campaign and peaked phenomenally at nationals. The Bandits “stole” the third place podium spot, finishing ahead of the Washington Huskies for a big end-of-the season upset.
The Commissioner’s Cup competition was also a thrilling battle, in which Georgia United (HANGRY from last year’s 2nd place finish to Florida Storm) came out on top! Georgia may have been a “small team” (shorthand for the 3-up, 3 count format) but they showed up with a HUGE presence, bold, strong and powerful. United indeed! Winners one and all. It was a joy to watch.
Congratulations to the team and to their exuberant captain, Aiden Whitehead, who was selected by the GymACT coaches and athletes as this year’s N2 Award Winner.
Bias personal note warning: Aiden ABSOLUTELY earned the N2 Award (it's no secret that I'm a huge fan of his on and off the competition floor). But I STILL think Trevor Ruggeri deserved to win SOMETHING because he had to endure ME as a coach for so many years! He KILLED IT when it mattered most on PBars, High Bar and Pommels for Washington. It was incredibly emotional for me to watch his final senior meet. Proud of you, kiddo!!!
Speaking of which, thank you, USAgymnastics for hosting such a great event and for setting up the equipment for us to have the live stream. The 6-screen format was pure eye-candy to my gymnastics ADHD brain (live and a few reruns since). Big shoutout to the stellar commentators: Kevin Riggle and Ben Hayes. Thank you, Kevin, for organizing the livestream for and thank you GymACT once again for providing the feed FREE to (me and) our fans. It was AWESOME!! — In spite of how hard it was to read the red scores on the blue background on my tv screen. ;)
Archived Webcast: https://youtube.com/live/j77kBdFOkQ0
Full meet results:
Meet Scores Online: https://meetscoresonline.com/results/34705/team
Road To Nationals: https://roadtonationals.com/results/scheduleGA/meet/8028
That’s about all I remember from the rock in the middle of the Pacific.
Breeze
STICK MASTERS
🏆Bay Area Bandits: 8
Georgia United: 7
Minnesota: 6
Arizona State: 4
Temple University: 4
From the Coaches
Arizona State (2025 National Champions)
Last weekend we made the short flight from Phoenix to Salt Lake City on Friday morning. On arriving we headed straight north to one of our gymnast’s (Robert Taylor) parent's home at the base of the beautiful mountains where they had ready for us a huge amount of food including a great smoked brisket. Between food and backyard games, it was a great way to start a championship weekend. We then headed back to get checked into the hotel and prepare for what was ahead.
Not only are the number of GymACT teams getting bigger in numbers, but the quality of gymnastics continues to get better and better. With that in mind we knew we had our work cut out for us at this year's Nationals. Coming off a great meet at the West Conference Championships 2 weeks ago we knew we had to do at least that, and better, if we wanted a chance to regain the title.
We started on floor in flight A which is right where we started last year at this time. Our strategy was simple: raise your hand, hit a set, stick your dismount! With two misses on our first event on floor we started digging a hole. Then we went to PH and proceeded to dig it a little deeper with another two misses. But knowing that it is never over until the last dismount, the team dug in and proceeded to hit 19 sets in a row keeping our spirits up and drive in first gear. Going into our last event we had a better cushion than we did last year so all we knew was that we had to hit five for five just to stay in contention. Well the HB team came through, did their job and the rest is history.
We enjoyed having senior team captain Caden Peacock standing up there as a nominee for the prestigious N2 award. Our team win was also punctuated with seniors Will Howard and Zach Litwin both taking first place on their events, FX and PH respectively.
The next day on Sunday, we celebrated by taking a drive up into the beautiful Provo canyon and hiking to Bridal Veil Falls. From there we went to Park City and toured the ski museum and checked out the site of the 2034 Winter Olympic games. We finished by enjoying a championship meal outdoors at the base of the mountain before heading off to catch our flight home. What a great Arizona State weekend!
Georgia United (Commissioner’s Cup Winners)
This year’s Nationals proved to be a year full of culture changes come to fruition. Being my first year with this team, and as a collegiate coach, we had tough mountains to climb together. Having the 2025 Georgia United Invitational be so exciting, paired with a Commissioner Cup National Title, we achieved all goals in 2025. Now, all of our eyes are looking forward to new heights.
Oh yeah, and an N2 award winner ;)
Georgia at Nationals:
Minnesota
A hard fought battle against rival Arizona State resulted in a 2nd place finish for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. A few unfortunate missed routines kept Minnesota from defending their title, which was won by ASU. "It wasn't our best performance of the season," said head coach Mike Burns.
"In a meet like this, you need to perform at a bit higher level to take home the title. While disappointed in the final results, I give this team a ton of credit for a pretty amazing season!!" A second place team finish, two All Americans in the All Around (David Grossman 3rd & Ben Letvin 5th), and seven All Americans distributed over five events: Anthony Nicholas on FX (5th), Jack Gagamov on PH (2nd), Ben Letvin (1st) & Caleb Gurman (3rd) on Vault, Anthony Nicholas (3rd) & Joseph Pennell (6th) on PB, & David Grossman on HB (3rd) was a nice haul of hardware from the 2025 GymACT National Championships.
Temple
Temple finished the National Championships with an 80% hit rate, and the team fought together until the end. Although our team's rank was below expectation from what was targeted in the beginning of the season, there were several positive takeaways. Personally, I am proud that the team outlasted the tough times by qualifying as a team to the GymACT Nationals and finishing with true unity. Our rings squad peaked at nationals, our vault squad competed the most difficulty compared to any season in the last 10+ years, Nate Davies placed in the top 8 on rings, and Landon Brady stuck 3/4 of his dismounts. This nationals exposed our weaknesses, and plans are already underway to attack next season with some serious artillery.
Bay Area Bandits
Nationals by the Numbers:
Pommels: 46.05
- 1 original skill competed (1/2 Spindle Handstand Dismount)
- 3/5 hit routines (with some major errors)
Takeaway - Rocky Start to a record breaking day for the Bandits.
Rings: 50.35 (Season High)
- 5/6 hit routines
- 3 Stuck Landings
- 2 All Americans: Toma Murakawa (13.05) and Panteley Kolodi (13.5)
Takeaway - An incredible return to form highlighting the Bandits’ resilience after a rocky start.
Vault: 51.3
- 0.1 lower than their season high.
- 1 All-American
- 5/5 hit routines
Pbars: 48.9
- 2/5 hit routines
- 0 sticks
- 1 All-American: Toma Murakawa (13.25)
Hbar: 49.65
- 1/5 Stuck Dismounts
- 1 Triple Pike Dismount
- 2 Czech Tkatchevs
- 1 All-American: William Pearce (13.65)
- 2/5 Hit Routines
Floor: 50.4(Season High)
- 4/5 Stuck Dismounts, 100% hits.
Total: 296.65 (3rd)
- 1st Nationals Podium finish for a United Team since the creation of GymACT (2019)
Historical Note - SC United placed 3rd in the 2018 USAG Collegiate Championships, prior to the creation of GymACT.
National Champions:
Rings: Panteley Kolodi: 13.5
High Bar: William Pearce: 13.65
PBars and All Around: Toma Murakawa: 13.25 (PB), 77.7 (AA)
Graduating Seniors:
A massive shoutout to our 2 graduating seniors from UC Berkeley. They’ve both been so incredibly instrumental in helping build the Bandits’ team to where it is now. We’re wishing them both the best of luck in their future endeavors, and selfishly hoping they stay in the Bay Area, so that they can continue to compete with us as they grow professionally.
Andrew Kerzhner: Data Science
Ryan Edmondson: Data Science
GymACT Socials:
Keep an eye on our social media channels as we get closer to Championship Season!
IG: @gymact
FB: @GymACTeams
YT: @GymACT
EAST AND WEST CAMPS
Registration OPEN NOW!
This year, for the first time we have TWO college bound camps so that we can bring the action closer to YOU!
GymACT is launching East Conference (Cincinnati, OH) and West Conference (Lafayette, CO) summer camps.
Double the IMPACT!
Per usual ALL of the GymACT programs will be represented, only now gymnasts may choose a deeper training opportunity with the coaches from the geographic area closest to them. Or, go to both camps and get experience DOUBLE the college recruiting opportunity!
Register now and guarantee your spot!
Gymnast of the Week 18
Nominees
Ben Letvin - Minnesota
Ben Letvin was instrumental in leading Minnesota to its National runner-up finish at GymACT Nationals this season. A solid All-Around competitor all year, Ben was once again able to become an All American in the All Around by virtue of his 5th place finish; posting his third highest AA score of the season. He also brought home the National Title on Vault with a stellar Kasamatsu 1 1/2 that earned him a 14.2 and the Gold Medal. This marked two vault titles at the end of 2025 the season. He was also crowned the Eastern Conference Vault Champion 2 weeks prior to Nationals. Please consider Ben for GymACT Nationals GOTW.
Toma Murakawa - Bandits
Toma Murakawa has been a stellar addition to the Bandits team this year. At the beginning of the year he was looking at not having a competition season, due to an unexpected amount of returning fifth years on the Stanford lineup and new roster limits. He has made an incredible impact in Bandits’ practices as well as on the competition floor. Hitting 6/6 at nationals and becoming an All-American on SR, VT, PB, and AA. (1st on PB and AA)
Zach Litwin - Arizona
National PH Champion, senior Zack Litwin as GOW since he has come the farthest of anyone our team since joining the team as a sophomore 3 years ago. In and out of our lineup throughout his whole career as a PH specialist, he ended up putting it all together and killing it at Nationals when it really counted for him and the team. One of the few times I have seen Zack smile was on his walk back from the podium after realizing he just won the PH title.
And all this in spite of tearing his ligaments in his ankle warming up at the conference championships. He was forced to go the next week and a half in a boot and miss 8 days of training. And it was questionable if he would even compete up to the day before Nationals. Well, we gambled and he & the team both won! Thank you for considering your vote for Zach as he is very deserving of GOW!
Toby Liang - Georgia
Toby came in late in the season and has absolutely crushed it for us. Training and competing exactly the events we asked him to, he was prepared when it mattered most. With a 12.750 on pommels, 13.450 on vault, and 13.150 on high bar, Toby gave us our 2nd and 3rd National Medals in the history of our program!
Up Next:
2025 WEST GymACT Conference College Bound Camp
When: Friday - Sunday, July 11-13, 2025
Where: Xtreme Altitude Gymnastics
1405 South Public Rd • Lafayette, CO 80026
2025 EAST GymACT Conference College Bound Camp
When: Friday - Sunday, June 27-29, 2025
Where: Kids First Sports Center
7900 E. Kemper Road • Cincinnati, OH 45249
Camp info and registration links:
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