INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - The NCAA announced Tuesday that Penn State gymnasts Alissa Bonsall, Lauren Bridgens, Cassidy Rushlow and Isabella Salcedo have qualified to compete at the NCAA Regional Championships in Norman, Oklahoma.
The regional round of the NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships are scheduled to take place March 30 – April 2.
The Nittany Lions will have three competitors on uneven bars, as Alissa Bonsall, Lauren Bridgens and Cassidy Rushlow were selected to compete in the event.
Bonsall led the Nittany Lions on bars with a top score of 9.950 at the Penn State Double Dual Meet against Illinois this season. The score matched her career high from last year's NCAA Morgantown Regional. It will be the fourth NCAA Regional appearance for Bonsall. Bridgens returned to her pre-injury form in 2022, recording three 9.9 scores on bars this year. The fifth-year senior remains the only gymnast to record a perfect 10.0 score on bars in Penn State history. She has competed in two NCAA Regionals and qualified for the NCAA Championships in her freshman season. Rushlow has been Penn State's most consistent competitor on bars this season, recording scores of 9.8 or above in all ten meets. She has posted a 9.9 score in two of the past three meets on bars. This will mark Rushlow's second NCAA Regional appearance.
Making her first trip to the NCAA Regional will be freshman Isabella Salcedo. Salcedo qualified on floor exercise after leading the Nittany Lions with seven 9.9 scores on the event. She has recorded a 9.9 or above in five consecutive meets, recording a career-high 9.950 at the New Hampshire Quad meet earlier this month.
The top 36 teams qualify for the NCAA Regionals based on national qualifying score (NQS) were selected for regional competition. The committee named the top 16 teams and seeded them in the bracket. Seeding determined at the time of selections will be maintained through the championship. Teams 17-36 were placed geographically at one of the four regional sites. Nine teams will compete at each of the four regional sites.
The committee also selected the top 12 all-around competitors and top 16 event specialists based on national qualifying scores and placed them geographically into one of the four regional sites, keeping individuals from the same team together. The list of all-arounders and individual event specialists included individual qualifying scores from the teams competing in the first round to ensure those individuals will compete in the individual competition if their team does not advance from the first round.