Women's Gymnastics
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
- Phone:
- 412-383-9078
Alina Cartwright started her journey at Pitt in mid-July of 2023.
She comes to Pitt from Michigan State, where she was a volunteer assistant coach and creative director. She worked primarily with beam and floor routines choreography as well as contributed strong assets in their videography department.
A native of Naperville, Illinois, spent four years (2017-21) at Alaska Anchorage where she was an assistant coach for the Seawolves. She was a four-year letterwinner at MSU from 2012-15, before starting her coaching career as a student assistant with the MSU Spartans for the 2016 season.
At Alaska Anchorage, Cartwright joined the staff under former head coach Paul Stoklos, and played a large role in helping ease the transition for successor Tanya Ho's first season of 2018 of her three years at the helm of the UAA program, before resigning, and interim head coach Marie-Sophie Boggasch in 2021, as the Seawolves did not compete during the 2021 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cartwright played an essential part in helping the Seawolves' top season in program history in 2019, as they broke 17 school records, including season average and National Qualifying Score (NQS) marks on bars, beam, floor and overall. In 2020, Cartwright helped UAA improve program records for bars NQS and team score average.
Since joining the UAA staff in 2017, Cartwright not only helped the Seawolves to improving on their school record team marks on the balance beam, but also individually, mentoring five UAA gymnasts post top 13 marks in program history. Under Cartwright's tutelage, Sophia Hyderally joined the Seawolves record books, posting a school-record score, as part of six of the top nine marks in program history. Hyderally was ranked among the top beam scores in the country, winning Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) beam titles in 2017 and 2019 and finishing fourth at the 2019 NCAA Corvallis Regional Championships. Hyderally was one of 12 All-MPSF honorees that Cartwright helped coach during her time at UAA, along with 18 MPSF All-Academic award recipients.
In her debut coaching season of 2016 as a student assistant at Michigan State, Cartwright helped MSU qualify for the 2016 NCAA Athens Regional Championships. She also helped MSU to a seventh-place finish at the 2016 Big Ten Championships in Lincoln, Nebraska, marking its highest finish at Big Tens since 2013, while MSU's team score of 195.475 was its best at the Big Ten Championships since scoring a 195.65 in 2009.
As a gymnast for the Spartan, Cartwright was voted to First-Team All-Big Ten honors in 2014, the first Spartan to earn first-team accolades since 2010. She went on to finish fifth in the All-Around at the 2014 NCAA Baton Rouge Regional Championships. Cartwright hold three of the top eight vault scores in program history, posting a 9.950 three times (2013, 2014, 2015). She also earned three MSU gymnastics team awards, including the Outstanding Gymnast Award in 2014, the Spirit Award in 2015, and also joined the 1,000 Point Club in 2014, becoming just the second Spartan gymnast to do so in the decade and remains just one of eight members of the 1,000 Point Club.
Cartwright earned her bachelor's degree in advertising from MSU in 2016.
