For level 10 gymnasts the senior season marks the end of an era. It’s the final competitive year before high school graduation—a season full of intensity, where gymnasts strive to excel in the moment, enjoying what they know will be a lot of lasts, while also preparing for what’s next. For many, it’s a last chance to hit their goals, or, for those still hoping to catch a college coach’s attention, a last opportunity to make their college gymnastics dream a reality.
Madison Gustitus, a former five-star recruit, now a freshman at San Jose State University (SJSU) fondly recalled her senior season. “I really enjoyed my senior level 10 season,” said Gustititus. “My main goal was just to have fun and give it my all because that was my last year of JO; I’m really happy with how it went.”
She capped off her season by clinching the national championship on beam, a perfect finale to her hard work. She also found out days before her graduation party that she had been re-rated and was now a five-star recruit. “I was so surprised and just, so happy,” she said. “I felt like all that hard work during that season finally paid off. So that was just really exciting.”
Halfway through the season after a conversation with the coaches at SJSU, they agreed that it would be good for her to come to college with a double layout dismount on bars, a skill that Gustitus didn’t have when she was recruited. “We kind of talked about getting my bar dismount,” said Gustitus. “And it was around state and regionals time that I really started working it in the gym, doing many numbers and making that a goal to add it into my routine at least sometime during the end of the season.”
The time came at nationals where she was due to finish her JO career on bars. She completed the dismount in competition for the first time, scoring a personal best of 9.700 on the event and clinching the third-highest all-around score.
Madison’s senior year wasn’t just about the competition though; it was also when she began building a relationship with the SJSU coaching staff. “Every few weeks, I’d have a call with one of the coaching staff,” she remembered. “That was really helpful. We’d talk about gymnastics, school, how life was going in general, and just having that bond was just a really nice thing.” The warmth and support from the coaches were what drew her to SJSU in the first place and a strong connection with them between commitment, signing day, and matriculation was really important.
The value of close communication between recruits and college coaches is something that Haley Mustari, a top recruit headed to LSU in 2025, found out when she saw her senior season end before it even began.
Training at Dynamo in Oklahoma, the gym that she has been at for her entire competitive career, Mustari faced a serious setback—a freak accident on a vault landing that left her with a laterally dislocated kneecap, torn medial patellar retinaculum, and a strain to the remaining knee ligaments and tendons requiring surgery and a long recovery ahead.
“It’s really disappointing,” Mustari shared. “I was really looking forward to one last year of club gym.” Instead, her role will shift. “I’m looking forward to being there for my team,” said Mustari. “I’m still going to go to all of the meets with them and be the biggest cheerleader.”
Mustari was initially nervous about the injury and what it might mean about her future at LSU, but a reassuring call with Head Coach Jay Clark put her at ease. “Jay is amazing. He completely understood everything,” she said. “I was told ‘everything on our side stays the same.’” This was exactly what she needed to hear. “I’m a very emotional person, with that kind of stuff; I started melting down,” said Mustari. “But everything was completely positive.”
Clark even offered to help them with a second opinion if they needed it. She’s been delighted with the support she’s received and following a visit in October she’s more excited than ever to begin her journey with the Tigers, but with five to seven months of recovery ahead, her focus in her senior year is on regaining her strength and further developing her leadership skills before heading to Baton Rouge.
For Cadence Gaumont, a currently uncommitted senior gymnast at Desert Devils in Arizona, leadership is already a central part of her final season. “My goals are to build everybody up and just make sure everyone has a good season,” said Gaumont.
She and three other seniors share leadership responsibilities within their large training group. “If a girl is having a bad day, one of us will go over, and the next day it will be another girl,” said Gaumont. “We all share it and just try to make sure that everyone is having a good time.”
Gaumont is a three-star recruit with a vault high of 9.950, but injuries in her first two seasons of level 10 left her less visible than other gymnasts in her recruiting class when it came time for coaches to make contact. “It’s been tough,” she said of the process. “I was injured so I don’t think my name was out there very much, but I’m really trying to dial in on emailing and posting videos.”
She does have some visits coming up, but an incidental side effect of still trying to catch the eye of college coaches has been the focus that it’s brought her. “It’s made me more focused on gym this year because I’m really trying to just get all my skills and really lock it in,” said Gaumont. “I feel like it’s made me push a little harder to get those sets put together.”
There is unlikely to be any college recruit who hasn’t had some kind of setback or bump in the road on their journey to become a college athlete. Avalon Campbell’s journey to becoming a five-star recruit heading to Arkansas in 2025 has been no exception.
She missed out on competing at level nine Westerns due to illness, and when she was finally ready to move up to level 10, an injury sidelined her, forcing her back to a few level nine meets. Just as she was preparing for her first full level 10 season, COVID-19 hit, delaying her level 10 debut until the following year. Despite these setbacks, she pushed forward, and now, she’s on the brink of achieving her college gymnastics dreams with the Razorbacks.
Like Mustari and Gustitus, it was the coaching staff who initially drew her to the college. Her relationship began when she attended one of the Best Darn College camps and had Chris Brooks, the assistant coach at Arkansas, on bars. “He was just overall really cheerful and enthusiastic for everyone,” she said. This positive feeling continued once she visited campus. “The team has felt like a family from the beginning,” she noted. Campbell also felt the coaching style was similar to what she was used to at home.
Seeing freshmen compete in their debut season for their college teams it’s easy to forget that they are just a few months into living away from home for the first time and also having to balance academic schedules on top of athletic commitments.
But there’s one final JO season to go before packing up and making the journey to campus and Campbell has set ambitious goals for her final level 10 season before heading to Fayetteville. “I would love to make it to (the) Nastia (Liukin Cup) and possibly a 10 on any event,” she shared.
Additionally, she’s been perfecting a new skill she hopes to debut at nationals—and maybe even get it named after her. While she’s staying tight-lipped about the specifics of this skill, she’s excited to get the season underway. Gaumont is also looking forward to the competition season starting, she’s made upgrades to each of her events in the offseason. She’ll debut a Yurchenko one and a half on vault and a new double layout on floor, and her goal for the season is to break 38.000 all-around. “I had a few mistakes last season,” she said. But believes if she is able to hit her routines pretty cleanly this year then it will happen for her.
Reflecting on her own final season, Gustitus said it felt different to previous ones. “During that season, it just kept hitting me like, wow, this is my last time, this is like, the last of everything,” said Gustitus. “I came in with a different mindset than previous seasons.” She was keen to prove to herself and others what she was capable of and put an exclamation point on all her years of training. “It just felt like the end of something that I really wanted to give my all (to) and just go out with a bang,” said Gustitus.
As Mustari, Gaumont, and Campbell take their final steps in club gymnastics, the year ahead looking different for each one, it’s clear that they will draw on the lessons of resilience, camaraderie, and steely determination built over years of dedication. No matter the outcome, this last year of JO gymnastics will be a valuable chapter in their stories, and bring excitement about the chapters still to be written.
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Article by Katie Couldrey
