North Carolina head coach Danna Durante couldn’t find proof of the last time the Tar Heels were ranked in the teens during the regular season.
Currently ranked at No. 18, Durante’s team is in the midst of its best season under her leadership. It opened 2026 with its highest road score at a season opener in program history and has consistently remained in the 196s all season, with its lowest team score coming just recently at the Purple and Gold Podium Challenge. Individually, JoJo Valahovic and Sydney Seabrooks are ranked in the top 10 on vault and floor respectively, while Gwen Fink is in the top 30 in the all-around, appearing in all but one meet on all four events.
The success the Tar Heels have experienced this year has been steadily building ever since Durante and associate head coach Marie Case Denick began working together five years ago. They’ve since added Matthew DeGrandpre and former LSU gymnast Sami Durante-Money to their coaching roster, and Durante attributes the team’s success to its willingness to buy in to the expectations set before them from the staff.
“The bar has been raised [by each previous team] and [the new team] has worked to try to meet that bar, and they have gotten better every year,” Durante said. “But if the team doesn’t believe in that [and] isn’t willing to work hard [and] buy into the things that we’re asking them to do, we’re not having the success that we’re having.”
While Seabrooks is only just now coming into the fold as a freshman, her impact has been immediate. In nine appearances on floor, she’s only scored below 9.900 twice. Her first collegiate appearance scored a 9.950, giving her the event title at the Florida quad meet. She has since become North Carolina’s second all-around athlete behind Fink, with six appearances to date. Seabrooks was one of many in her class that shared her recruiting process publicly, and though she had a lot of different opportunities presented to her, coming to North Carolina has exceeded her expectations.
“Since I stepped foot on this campus, I have never regretted a moment of being here,” she says. “[The team] just connects so well, and I think that’s made it really easy for us to go out here, have so much fun, and know that we’re doing it for each other.”
Durante said that Seabrooks’ ability to be a big contributor was one of the reasons she recruited her to be a Tar Heel and that the upperclassmen have done so much to help her get acclimated to college life, which has helped everyone else feel comfortable being bigger and bolder in their gymnastics. “She’s really comfortable doing big things, but she always points that success back to our team and she’s so thankful for her team. We knew she could do these big things, and the fact that [she’s] such a great team player is just icing on the cake.”
As North Carolina pushes towards postseason, Durante wants her team to continue to show improvement across the board, particularly on bars, which she says has the chance to be their greatest growth story. She also wants to work on getting some additional depth options into the lineups and giving some of the athletes a chance to rest. Even with that in mind, Durante believes her team is continuing to move in the right direction and is aiming for a seeded spot in the postseason.
“This team has done some amazing things,” she said, “and [we need to] make sure we’re celebrating the good stuff that we’re doing right.”
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Article by Savanna Wellman
