Former Arizona associate head coach Taylor Spears left the Arizona GymCats just before the school year after being with head coach John Court since 2019. Court left the position open for the year, but now he has two more assistants to replace.
Both associate head coach Kylie Kratchwell and assistant coach Shelby Martinez have announced that they are leaving Arizona. Along with Spears, the duo were the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association’s Regional Assistant Coaches of the Year for the South
Central Region after the 2025 season.
Spears is no longer working in college athletics. Martinez is also following that path. She was announced as the new head coach and team coordinator at the Mesa/Queen Creek location of Arizona Dynamics on Thursday afternoon.
Martinez competed for the GymCats as Shelby Edwards from 2013-16 under former head coaches Bill Ryden and Tabitha Yim. Court was an assistant on both staffs and brought Martinez back to Tucson in 2024. She coached the GymCats during the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
Prior to taking an assistant coaching position at Arizona, Martinez had been working in club gymnastics in Mesa, Ariz. She spent eight years coaching at Carter’s Gymnastics Academy. She was a coach, choreographer, and compulsory team director working with levels 2-10. She also ran coaching clinics.
As an athlete, Martinez was the Pac-12 co-champion on vault in 2014. She also regularly competed on balance beam, where she had a career high of 9.900.
While Martinez has been coaching in Tucson, her husband and two young children have remained in the Phoenix area the past two years.
Kratchwell joined the staff as a volunteer assistant coach four years ago. When the volunteer position was eliminated, she was added to the staff as a paid coach. She was elevated to associate head coach last season just before Spears announced her departure.
Kratchwell has not announced her future intentions.
The program went with just two assistants last season for the second time in recent years. When Martinez was hired, she filled a position that was empty the year before her arrival.
The GymCats had a historic season in 2025. They finished second at the Big 12 Championships and went 5-1 in the regular season. Their only losses to conference opponents during their first year in the Big 12 were to Utah.
Once they got to the postseason, they upset No. 10 Georgia to take second in their session and advanced to the regional final for the first time since the new postseason format was adopted in 2019. It made them one of the final 16 NCAA gymnastics teams standing.
In addition to the assistant coaches receiving national honors, Court was named Big 12 Coach of the Year, and the program produced the Big 12 co-Event Specialist of the Year in Elena Deets.
The program was not able to reproduce the success this season. They lost a large number of routines with the departures of Deets, Alysen Fears, and Emily Mueller. Both Fears and Mueller were all-arounders and Deets competed two events, meaning 10 of 24 routines had to be replaced.
The team did relatively well at home in 2026, but it had to count a fall at every meet away from McKale Center.
“I take responsibility for that,” Court said.
The GymCats made the NCAA postseason, but they had to compete against the Sun Devils in the play-in meet at the Tempe Regional. They led by a considerable margin going into the final rotation, but a disastrous beam showing knocked them out and allowed ASU to advance.
There was still a silver lining. Despite the overall poor team performance on beam in the play-in meet, junior all-arounder Abigayle Martin did well on beam the following day and qualified for nationals. She earned a 9.850 at the national championships in Fort Worth, Tex. last weekend.
In addition to needing an entire staff, the GymCats have some more holes to fill for next season. Emma Strom, Elizabeth LaRusso, Gianna Lenczner, and Sophia Stephens all wrapped up their careers. All except Stephens were regular contributors on meet days.
Sophomores Teagan White and Jillian Silvers are in the transfer portal. Silvers did not compete during her two years at Arizona. White did not compete her freshman year but competed on balance beam five times as a sophomore. Her final appearance was on Feb. 14, 2026.
Arizona will have more routines returning in 2027 than it did in 2026. A year after losing 10 routines, it will only lose five this offseason. Now, it needs a staff to coach those routines. In his favor, Court has an extra four months notice this time around.
