Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall junior Raya Goergen competes on the beam during a prep gymnastics meet at Marshall Middle School on Jan. 3. The Marshall gymnasts competed in their final prep meet on Saturday, with the program being cut for next season.

Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall eighth grader Shyann Murphy sticks the landing off the bars during a prep gymnastics meet at Marshall Middle School on Jan. 3.

“It was definitely heartbreaking,” Marshall junior Raya Goergen, the lone upperclassman on the team, said. “I’ve spent a lot of time on this team, I’ve been a captain this year, and just seeing these younger girls and how much they’ve accomplished from an older teammate’s perspective, it’s just heartbreaking that I won’t get to see that anymore. But hopefully there are more opportunities in the future to stay a team, and hopefully we stay close and well-connected.”

Marshall finalized cuts of at least $1.8 million in expenditures for the 2026-27 academic year. In addition to faculty cutbacks and the varsity gymnastics program, the school also eliminated the junior high softball, track and field and speech teams.

The Marshall gymnastics team fielded a younger roster this year. Aside from Goergen and sophomores Kiera Clemens and Avery Schauman, the team was made up of four eighth graders and six seventh graders.

Many of the middle schoolers were aware that this year was potentially their lone season of competition with the Tigers when the season began. Still, the end of the program doesn’t detract from their brief tenure with the team.

“I was very shocked when I heard about that, and I’m very sad about it because obviously I don’t want gymnastics to be cut,” seventh grader Greta Bailey said. “It’s been very stressful, but it’s been a lot of fun. I just really love being at the gym with all these girls. I think it’s a perfect place to be.”

“It’s just been fun getting better and hanging out with all these girls,” seventh grader Kiera DeRuyter added.

The Tigers showed progress and growth throughout the season. Each of their top four team all-around scores came in the final four meets of the season, culminating in a season-best 118.9 score in the Section 3A championships on Saturday. The mark was 8 points higher than their season debut against Fairmont.

“It’s really sad seeing a program that’s just starting to flourish being cut off,” Marshall head coach Samantha Nielsen said. “We have tried our best, especially the last few years, to grow the program from the bottom to the top, so it really is sad to see that some of these younger girls won’t get a chance to be on the Tiger team, so we’ve had a lot of emotions over that.”

Nielsen added that despite the impending end of the program, even the younger girls who were unlikely to have the opportunity to compete for the Marshall varsity team continued to put in as much work as possible to get better in practice every day.

While gymnastics won’t be returning next year for Marshall, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the road for the Marshall gymnasts. Goergen said that she’ll be taking advantage of some of the extra free time next year to focus on academics, but that she and some of the other gymnasts will also look into club teams in order to continue honing their talents and compete in their sport.