PHILADELPHIA – For the second consecutive season, the University of Pennsylvania gymnastics team has won the Gymnastics East Conference (GEC) Regular Season Championship, announced Monday afternoon by the league office.
 
"We are so proud of this team and the hard work that went into capturing the regular season title," said head coach Kirsten Becker C'13. "We've been focused on preparation and consistency over all else since the start of preseason and that's really been the highlight of the year. 
 
"We are looking forward to finishing up with a great championship competition this Saturday in Williamsburg!"
 
The Quakers will begin competition this weekend at the 2023 GEC Championships at William & Mary with the top overall seed, totaling a NQS of 195.015.
 
With the seedings determining the session the teams will compete in on Saturday, Penn will take center stage in the second session, starting at 6 p.m. alongside Brown, West Chester and Yale.
 
Final GEC Regular Season Standings
1. Penn (195.015)
2. Brown (194.315)
3. West Chester (193.795)
4. Yale (193.685)
5. Southern Connecticut (192.995)
6. Cornell (192.585)
7. William & Mary (191.930)
8. Bridgeport (191.820)
 
Penn has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success this season, accumulating the team's best NQS at the end of a regular season schedule in program history. The Quakers started the year off with the best season-opening score (193.525) in program history at the Keystone Classic and from there, it was success after success for Penn. The team score of 195.250 against Cornell on Feb. 5 was its fourth-best score in the record book.
 
On Feb. 19 at Temple, the Quakers tallied a program-record score on balance beam with a 49.475 with matching program-record tallies of 9.950 for sisters McCaleigh Marr and Campbell Marr.
 
Teams in 5th-8th place in the GEC compete in Session 1 at noon and teams ranked 1st-4th compete in Session 2 at 6:00 p.m. Starting events will be determined by random draw.
 
Penn will look to defend its GEC title on Saturday, March 18 after winning at the inaugural Championships in 2022. The College of William & Mary will host the tournament at Kaplan Arena.