Four women’s gymnasts from Simpson College traveled to Cortland, New York, to compete in the National Collegiate Gymnastics Association (NCGA) Championships on March 20, 2026.
In total, the women had five qualifying routines: senior Kaelyn Tally competed on both vault and the floor exercise, juniors Liz Sisler and Evalyn Resnick competed on the uneven parallel bars and the balance beam, respectively, and sophomore Emmie Barton also competed on vault.
Tally scored a 9.650 on the floor exercise, followed by a 9.775 on vault, where she tied for fifth place and acquired an All-American title. She competed a vault routine with a start value of 10.0, which was the first in school history. Her performance attracted a lot of attention on social media.
“It was very cool to see my vault get so much attention on social media,” Tally said. “It’s just another way to get Simpson on people’s radar and show other schools that we’re capable of being on their level.”
This was Tally’s last meet of her career, and she got to perform on the national level.
“I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better way to end my career,” Tally said. “My goal for the year was to podium at nationals, and I did.”
Tally stacked many awards this year, but most at the competition, she was nominated for the NCGA Outstanding Senior Athlete.
“I didn’t expect that award at all, and it puts into perspective how hard I’ve worked and how other head coaches recognize my accomplishments over the years,” Tally said.
Sisler scored a career high of 9.775 on bars, which is the second-highest score in school history, and tied her for 11th place.
“It was a literal fever dream. I never saw myself being able to make it this far in gymnastics, so making it to nationals showed me that all of my hard work paid off,” Sisler said.
Sisler said she set goals for herself at the beginning of the year.
“Kaelyn and I both told each other that we were going to nationals when we were moving in this year, and at that point, I was just saying things to be positive, and we both ended up going to nationals,” Sisler said
Barton matched her second-highest career score on vault of a 9.700 on vault and tied for 11th place.
Resnick scored a 9.600 on the balance beam to cap off Simpson College’s trip to the NCGA Championships and the 2026 season.
Sisler accomplished her goal of qualifying for nationals, but her new goal is to motivate the rest of her teammates.
“I feel like something I can do for the team based on this experience is to help push people to set goals that they may think are unrealistic, and then continue to push them to reach those goals,” Sisler said.
