San Jose, Calif.—Mercedez Sanchez, a graduate and former walk-on at UCLA, will compete for the San José State women's gymnastics team for the 2021 season, as announced by Spartan head coach Joanne Bowers.
Sanchez, the daughter of Rosemarie and Victor Sanchez from Agoura Hills, Calif., was a four-year member of the UCLA women's gymnastics team (2017-20) including the 2018 national championship team. She will graduate with a degree in sociology from UCLA this spring and will pursue a master's degree in kinesiology with a sports studies concentration at San José State.
During her club years, Sanchez trained at and competed for Matrix Gymnastics with her coach and step-dad Chris Clark. She won the all-around, bars, beam and floor at the 2015 Copa Quetzal Level 10 competition in Guatemala.
Coach Bowers on Mercedez
"We are very excited to add graduate transfer, Mercedez Sanchez, to our Spartan Gymnastics Family! Mercedez added depth to the very deep UCLA bars and beam lineups, and we feel will be able to help us right away. Her maturity and her experience, coming from a very successful, high-level program, will be welcome here, especially due to having a very young team next year.
Mercedez has been an Scholastic All-American in obtaining her undergraduate degree and plans to major in kinesiology with an emphasis on psychology for her graduate program at SJSU. She will be reunited with former Matrix Gymnastics Club teammate, Alexa Solomon, a sophomore on our team. After many Zoom and FaceTime calls (our world right now), we are convinced that she epitomizes all we are looking for to keep our current team culture strong. Her flexibility, artistry, performance quality, and difficulty along with her strong character will be a nice addition to our team."
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