Four gymnasts from the University of Denver have been named to the 2026 Big 12 Gymnastics Preseason Team, according to an announcement from the conference on Thursday.
Seniors Mila Brusch, Cecilia Cooley, and Kiley Rorich, along with junior Maddison Reidenbach, earned a total of five spots across three events. Brusch and Reidenbach were selected for vault, while Cooley and Rorich received recognition on bars. Cooley also earned a place on floor.
Denver’s four honorees and five total selections are second only to Utah in the Big 12 Conference. This year’s team includes one fewer Denver gymnast than last season, which marked the first time the conference announced a preseason gymnastics team.
Cooley led Denver with two honors—on bars and floor. Last season she recorded DU’s second highest National Qualifying Score (NQS) on floor (9.860) and holds the second highest bars NQS (9.865) among returning athletes from 2025. Her career highs include 9.925 on bars and 9.900 on both floor and beam.
After missing competition in 2024 due to injury, Cooley returned last season to compete regularly on bars, beam, and floor. She is expected to be a contender for all-around this coming season.
Brusch was named to the vault preseason team after sharing the Big 12 Conference title in that event last year. She twice scored a career-high 9.900 with her Yurchenko full during the 2025 season—including at the Big 12 Championship—and posted a vault NQS of 9.845, ranking second among Denver’s returning gymnasts for next year.
Brusch has competed on vault in every meet over two seasons and is frequently part of Denver’s floor lineup. She has begun training bars ahead of this season and may contend for lineups across all four events.
Rorich was recognized for uneven bars as Denver’s top returning gymnast based on NQS last season (9.870). Her career high is a near-perfect 9.975 on bars; she finished as runner-up at NCAA Regionals in that event in 2025 and previously earned WCGA Postseason All-American honors there in 2023.
She has appeared in nearly every meet for Denver’s bars lineup throughout her career and has trained both vault—a front handspring front pike half—and beam over recent years.
Reidenbach made the preseason team for vault after competing an upgraded Yurchenko 1.5 last year, scoring as high as 9.975 en route to earning Big 12 Event Specialist weekly honors in February 2025; she ended with DU’s second highest NQS (9.855) on vault that year.
In her first two collegiate seasons, Reidenbach participated fully in every event except bars but made exhibition appearances there last season; she is now training all four events with expectations of contending for all-around status this year.
All four gymnasts are receiving their first Big 12 preseason honors.
This marks only the second year that coaches have selected a preseason gymnastics team within the conference; nominations are followed by voting where coaches cannot select athletes from their own teams—the top six all-arounders plus six gymnasts per event are chosen each year.
The University of Denver gymnastics team will open its season hosting Stanford at Magness Arena on Sunday, January 11 at 1:45 p.m., with its conference opener scheduled against West Virginia later that month.
Fans can preview this year’s squad during the annual Crimson & Gold Intrasquad meet set for Sunday, December 21 at Magness Arena; admission is free.
