CHARLOTTE, N.C. – After a historic 2024 season highlighted by a trip to the NCAA Championship semifinals and a top-five national finish, Stanford was picked to finish second in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in 2025 following a vote of the league’s six head coaches.
2024 NCAA Runner-Up California was voted the favorite to claim the league title. The Golden Bears and Cardinal were predicted to lead the conference in their inaugural seasons in the ACC after NC State captured the first-ever ACC conference title in 2024.
Alongside the preseason coaches poll, the conference released the 2025 Preseason Watch List which features 12 gymnasts as nominated by the league’s six gymnastics programs, and the Newcomer List, featuring one true freshman from each program. 2024 NCAA Vault National Champion junior Anna Roberts and senior Brenna Neault were each picked for the Preseason Watch List while freshman Ui Soma was named to the 2025 Newcomer Watch List.
Roberts and Neault were both integral pieces of Stanford's 2024 squad that finished as the fifth-best team in the nation. During the 2024 campaign, the Cardinal, led by three of the program’s best team performances in its storied history, became the first unseeded team to make nationals in its new format (since 2019) and the first unseeded team to make the national championship meet in any format since 2011. Individually, sophomore Anna Roberts captured the 2024 NCAA Vault Championship title, bringing home Stanford's first NCAA individual championship since Elizabeth Price's floor title in 2018.
Soma is one of five incoming freshmen that made up College Gym News’ seventh-ranked incoming freshman class, alongside Olympian and five-star recruit Levi Jung-Ruiviar, fellow five-star recruit Jaime Dugan, and four-star incomers Alana Walker and Kendra Chang. The Belmont, Calif. native comes off a 2024 elite campaign that included top finishes on uneven bars at both the NHK Trophy and WOGA Classic meets and a third-place performance on the same apparatus at the All-Japan Championships.
Stanford enters the season ranked 15th in the WCGA Coaches Poll, released Tuesday. The only other conference member to earn a top-20 ranking was California, ranked fourth in the annual preseason poll. NC State, Clemson and North Carolina were selected to finish 25th, 28th, and 36th, respectively.
The Cardinal, under eighth-year Rodgers Family Director of Gymnastics Tabitha Yim, begins the 2025 season on Jan. 10 with a quad meet in Seattle, Wash. against Washington, Boise State and UC Davis.
2025 ACC Preseason Coaches Poll
1. California- 34
2. Stanford- 29
3. NC State- 21
4. Clemson- 18
5. North Carolina- 15
6. Pitt- 9
2025 Preseason Watch List
Brenna Neault, Stanford
Anna Roberts, Stanford
eMjae Frazier, Cal
Mya Lauzon, Cal
Rebecca Wells, Clemson
Eve Jackson, Clemson
Julia Knower, North Carolina
Lali Dekanoidze, North Carolina
Chloe Negrete, NC State
Katie Harper, NC State
Hallie Copperwheat, Pitt
Jah’Liyah Bedminster, Pitt
2025 Newcomer Watch List
Ui Soma, Stanford
Ondine Achampong, Cal
Hannah Clark, Clemson
JoJo Valahovic, North Carolina
Ava Myers, NC State
Meika Lee, Pitt