California men's gymnastics will leave the state for the first time this week, visiting Greenville's H.J. Long Gymnasium for a tri-meet with the hosting Panthers and Simpson on Saturday. The meet will begin at 11 a.m. PT, with a live stream and live scoring available on Virtius.
 
The Golden Bears will be without stellar sophomore Matteo Bardana, who is traveling north to Calgary, Alberta, to compete at the prestigious Elite Canada meet along with program alumnus and Canadian national team member Aidan Li. Bardana, who was named to the Canadian Senior Next Gen team in 2025 and helped the squad to a silver medal at the FISU World University Games, will attempt the all-around for the first time this season, while Li, who was recently selected to compete at the upcoming Apparatus World Cup in Cottbus, Germany, will attempt to defend his title on pommel horse. Competition begins Friday at the BMO Centre at 5:24 p.m. PT, while qualifiers will appear again Sunday in the final at 1:15 p.m. A livestream for the meet will be broadcast on HomeTeam Network, with live scoring available on the LiveMeet app.
 
The last time the Bears competed was Jan. 24 at the Stanford Open, where they faced Stanford and Ohio State. For its second meet in a row, Cal won the vault title and posted the top score in the nation (56.650), with all four men in its lineup scoring a 14.000 or better. The Bears finished with a total team score of 313.95, a 4.25-point improvement from its season opener two weeks prior. Jasper Smith-Gordon bettered his own modern era program vault record to 14.550 (the best score in the country this season) to earn his second consecutive vault title, while Theodor Roald Gadderud earned the best parallel bars score by a Bear (13.950) in the modern scoring era.
 
ACROSS THE GYM - GREENVILLE: Led by fourth-year head coach Zach Peters, Greenville has a season average of 306.100 through three meets and owns the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC)'s No. 1 parallel bars unit. The Panthers' top gymnast is junior Jaxon Clapper, who averages a 13.483 on floor (14.050 high), a 13.900 on vault (14.150 high) and a 13.650 on parallel bars (13.900 high) this season. Clapper has won two floor titles and a parallel bars title in 2026 and is the reigning ECAC silver medalist on vault. Greenville's parallel bars squad is also boosted by senior Michael Avery, who has a season-best score of 13.600.
 
This will be Cal's first time meeting Greenville in the regular season and just the second time overall. The two teams first competed together at the NCAA Championships on April 19, 2024, with the Golden Bears outscoring the Panthers 407.158-389.157 (2017-24 scoring system).
 
ACROSS THE GYM – SIMPSON: Head coach Colin Payne, who was a three-time College Gymnastics Association (CGA) National Assistant Coach of the Year as an assistant at Navy, leads the Storm in their fourth year as a program. Simpson's top returner is junior Brian Rollison, who was Simpson's first gymnast ever to qualify for the NCAA Championships final. Rollison opened his season with a third-place finish on rings at a tri-meet with Michigan and Greenville, then was one of two Simpson gymnasts to qualify for day two at the West Point Open before inclement weather forced the Storm to withdraw from the competition. Sophomore Braxton Jones likewise shows great promise for his team, having opened his season with a third-place score on floor at the Michigan/Greenville tri-meet.
 
The coming weekend marks Cal's first time meeting Simpson in any competition.
 
ROOKIE STANDOUT
Following his collegiate debut on Jan. 9, freshman Nathan Underhill was named a Co-Rookie of the Week by the CGA along with Michigan's Eli Osuna. Underhill posted one of Cal's three 14-plus scores on vault to help the squad to an event title and a nation-best score, also recording the team's second-best routine on rings. He joins current teammate Jasper Smith-Gordon (2023) as well as alumni Noah Newfeld (2021) and Darren Wong (2019) as the only Bears to claim national rookie of the week recognition. Underhill was also named the MPSF Freshman of the Week after his performance at the Stanford Open on Jan. 24, where he competed in the all-around and helped Cal to a second straight vault title and another nation-best score.
 
NEW YEAR, NEW ROLES
Cal's coaching staff is composed of three program alumni this season, each of whom has competed or coached at the highest level. New head coach Bryan Del Castillo, who spent the previous six years with the Bears as an assistant and was the interim head coach for the second half of the 2025 season, earned five All-America honors as a gymnast at Cal and is a former member of the U.S. National Team. Third-year assistant coach Karl Ziehn is a former U.S. National Team coach as well as a seven-year assistant at Stanford, helping the Cardinal to a national title in 2019. New to Cal's staff is Donothan Bailey, a former teammate of Del Castillo's who was a three-time All-American and is the last Golden Bear to win an MPSF title on pommel horse (2012, 2014), won a bronze medal with the U.S. National Team in 2011 and also coached the USA Gymnastics Resident Team in 2011-22. During their time at Cal, Del Castillo and Bailey were named finalists for the Nissen Emery Award, the top honor presented annually to a senior collegiate men's gymnast.
 
ON THE WORLD STAGE
Senior Theodor Roald Gadderud of Norway and sophomore Matteo Bardana of Canada each represented their respective nations on the international stage in the summer of 2025. Roald Gadderud, a four-time All-MPSF honoree who earned two MPSF medals in 2025 and is Cal's parallel bars record-holder (modern scoring system), competed at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships after runner-up finishes on floor, high bar and the all-around at the Norwegian National Championships. One of the youngest gymnasts ever to be recruited by the Norwegian National Team at age 11, Roald Gadderud ranked 10th in the NCAA on parallel bars in 2025 and competed in his third straight NCAA Championships final. Bardana, who broke Cal's high bar record in the Bears' 2026 season opener, helped Canada to its first medal in history (silver) at the FISU World University Games as a member of the Canadian Senior Next Gen National Team, earning the spot after winning the Canadian Senior Next Gen parallel bars title and bronze medals on floor and rings. In his first season with the Bears, Bardana earned All-MPSF and MPSF Freshman of the Week honors, later qualifying for the NCAA Championships final on floor and rings.
 
THEY'RE BACK
In addition to Roald Gadderud and Bardana, Cal returns several of its top gymnasts for the 2026 season. Jasper Smith-Gordon, a redshirt senior who owns the vault school records in the current and previous scoring systems, is a two-time College Gymnastics Association (CGA) Regular-Season All-American (2023-24) in the event and the reigning MPSF vault champion, becoming the first Bear to win a conference vault title in 38 years. Fellow senior Khalen Curry is a two-time All-MPSF honoree and a three-time NCAA Finals qualifier, while juniors Carter Kim and Jaxon Mitchell also have received All-MPSF recognition. Sophomore Trigg Dudley, who competed in the British Championships last spring, won the floor title in December at the College Gymnastics Association (CGA) All-Star exhibition contest.
 
NEW BEARS IN THE RANKS
Cal is fielding six rookies and one graduate transfer in this season's squad. All-around stars Nathan Underhill (Oconomowoc, Wis.), Davide Comparin (Irving, Texas) and Liam DeWeese (Murphy, Texas) each have a Men's Development Program national title to their name, while Finley Chin (Irvine), JD Ehinger (Coppell, Texas) and Will Horenziak (Montgomery, Ohio) have a combined 15 state championships over the past four seasons. Comparin, DeWeese and Ehinger are also former club teammates, having competed for Texas Dreams Gymnastics as junior gymnasts Finally, newcomer Kaien Orion spent the 2023-25 seasons at Stanford, helping the Cardinal to national titles in 2023-24 and appearing in the NCAA Finals in each of the past two years.
 
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