Sophomore all-around competitor Gabrielle Stephen at practice on Friday, March 24, 2023 - one week before the Spartans travel to Pittsburgh, Pa for the second round of the NCAA Regionals tournament. —
Photo by Chloe Trofatter |
The State News
Gabrielle Stephen had an incredible season last year, and she just keeps improving.
As a freshman, Stephen was named Big Ten freshman of the week on three separate occasions and landed a spot on the All-Big Ten First Team at the end of the regular season. These accolades were well deserved, as Stephen was putting up amazing numbers. Even after the huge year she had, Stephen's skills and scores have still been consistently improving throughout her second season.
Before the start of the season, the sophomore was named as a Big Ten Gymnast to watch and she has certainly lived up to the title.
Last year, Stephen was averaging mid to low 9.700 scores on bars, beam and floor with floor being her lowest scoring event throughout the course of her freshman season. Her scores are sitting consistently higher this year—giving her average scores above 9.800 on every apparatus. Floor went from being Stephen’s worst average scoring event at a 9.716 to her best with a 9.893.
It has not just been more consistent scoring that has improved Stephen’s averages, but also the career-highs she has been setting recently. Stephen tied her career high 9.950 on vault and set massive new career high 9.975s on both the uneven bars and on floor.
Despite her consistent incredible performances, Stephen said that she can get really stressed out before competing—especially on the balance beam.
“I find it hard to watch my teammates in front of me,” Stephen said. “So, I'm just listening in the background, listening to the team and when everyone's cheering — I'm like, oh, that's a good noise. I like to hear that. I can look at the big screen, but I can't watch it.”
Sophomore all-around competitor Gabrielle Stephen at practice on Friday, March 24, 2023 - one week before the Spartans travel to Pittsburgh, Pa for the second round of the NCAA Regionals tournament.
One of the biggest moments for the Spartans this season was during the meet against Long Island and Bowling Green where they set a 198+ program high score. 198.000 is a huge number in gymnastics and only a handful of teams across the country can say that they’ve hit that milestone, but Gabi Stephen has a support system that was confident in the team’s ability to cross that threshold.
Stephen said that last season her dad, Patrick Stephen and Skyla Schulte’s dad, Pete Schulte, were joking around with them and told them that when — not if — MSU hit 198.000, Patrick Stephen would do a back flip. After the LIU and BGSU tri-meet, he did just that.
“I was reminding him at the beginning of this year, I was like—don't forget, it's coming, so be ready,” Stephen said. “I wasn't expecting to see the video so soon after we had finished competing though…we sat down and we were eating and then I looked at my phone. He texted us and it was video of him doing a backflip. I knew it was coming and it was just so funny to watch.”
Stephen’s father shared the video to his Twitter account. It has gained over a hundred thousand views since the time of posting.
Gabrielle Stephen is the second of five children and she said even though her family is very busy, she is very excited that they can still make the time to support her and watch her compete when they can. The sophomore said that her parents were at the Big Ten Championships and they will once again join the team on the road in Pittsburg to watch them compete at regionals.
Michigan State will be competing in the first session of the Pittsburgh regional semi-finals at 2 p.m. on Friday, March 31 against No. 7 California, West Virginia and Western Michigan. Regionals will be streamed on ESPN+.
