BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. – Notre Dame College acrobatics & tumbling has experienced a lot of firsts as a program this week. Yesterday, the Mountain East Conference announced that the Falcons had multiple student-athletes earn All-MEC honors and that head coach Nikki Pizzi was Coach of the Year. Bailey Hebert also became the program's first All-MEC First Team member. And now it has announced that NDC will be competing in the Tumbling Event at the MEC Championships, sending both the Trio Pass and the Open Pass to contend for a conference championship.

As a team, Notre Dame improved by three wins from their inaugural season in 2023, finishing this year with a 4-4 record. The Falcons just missed out on qualifying to compete for a Team MEC Championship, but the Event Finals will take place at 11 a.m., on April 13 and Notre Dame will compete in two of the heats. The tournament is hosted by Fairmont State University, in Fairmont, W.Va To buy tickets, click here.

This season, the Falcons' Trio Pass averaged a score of 8.213 per competition, which is higher than the averages of the other qualifiers at Fairmont State (8.200) and Frostburg State (8.170). The participants in the Trio Pass for NDC this season have been junior Jenna Chrzanowski, sophomore Kati Rice and sophomore Sydney Gibson. That highlight of that group's season was posting an 8.7, with a start value of 9.1, against Glenville State on March 21.

Rice will also be competing in the Open Pass, where she averaged a score of 8.906, with a start value of 9.1. After scoring below an 8.9 in the first two competitions of the season, she was consistently at 8.9, or higher, the rest of the year. The native of Dallas, Tex. put up an 8.95 on March 16, against both Trine University and Adrian College and then reached a 9.025 on March 21, versus Glenville State.

To learn more about the Acobatics & Tumbling Championships, and to watch, click here.