Gymnastics leaves Brown swinging from the bars

The Penn gymnastics team set four school records Saturday en route to an overall Brown destruction. "This was the best team performance in the history of the program!" Penn gymnastics coach Tom Kovic said. With the temporary bleachers of Hutchinson Gymnasium crammed to capacity, the Red and Blue put on a clinic for Brown University Saturday, thrashing the Bears by nine points. The homecoming crowd, which included several members of Kovic's first Penn squad of 1988, witnessed the Quakers rewrite three team scoring records and one individual event record in the 189.075-180.475 victory over their Ivy and ECAC opponent. "Did I ever imagine a score like that? Absolutely," Kovic said. "Every meet I try to prepare myself mentally, and my team mentally, that it's going to be the best performance of their career, so did it surprise me? No. Was I excited? You bet I was!" In its first event, Penn (3-1) broke the team record in the vault with a score of 46.8. Brown (5-3) started the day with a sloppy showing on bars, giving Penn an early four point lead. The Red and Blue never looked back, performing solidly on the bars before smashing the team record on the beam with a 48.225. Jennifer Capaasso and Kathleen Gunn each put 9.7s on the board before Lizzie Jacobson broke the team's individual record with a remarkable score of 9.8. A floor score of 47.7 pushed the overall team score past Penn's old record of 188.775, set at last year's ECACs. "It was our home ground and a home crowd," said Jacobson. "I knew we had it in us and I'm glad we could just pull it out for a good, strong meet." Though a Brown Gymnastics banner portrayed a bear gnashing its teeth on a "Danger! Killer Bears" road sign, Brown's effort was little match for the impressive Quakers. "This is probably the best meet that we've had as a team since I came to Penn," Kathleen Gunn said. The tri-captain narrowly missed breaking a fifth Quakers record with an impressive all-around score of 38.375. "It [189.075] was a big score," Gunn said. "It will help our ECAC standings and just increase our confidence going into some of the bigger meets." "We literally were on fire today," Penn tri-captain Shilpa Rao said. Rao felt Penn's victory set the team moving in the right direction toward success in the upcoming meets and also served as a reprisal for last week's heart-breaking loss to Yale. "It always helps to come out of a meet doing so well for confidence reasons.," Rao said. "We're going to go into the next one with just that much more confidence, the Ivies too. We'll get Yale at Ivies." The meet was extra special for coach Kovic, who presented members of the 1987-88 gymnastics team, his first as Penn coach, with framed certificates and team photos before the meet. "Sure it's special," said Kovic (68-42 in his Penn career). "It's great when you get your alumni and friends back to see how the team is progressing, and to do this well makes us proud." Following the meet, alumni, friends and family of Penn gymnastics were invited to the T-house, where a catered reception was held in honor of the 10-year reunion. Perusing a table of 10-year-old photographs brought back many fond memories for the former Penn gymnasts, many of whom still feel strong ties to the team. "We come back pretty much every year at least for the homecoming meet and then for Ivies or ECACs," Ingrid Zoba said. "A lot of us live in Philadelphia still." The alumni in attendance were extremely impressed with the record-breaking victory over Brown. "I'd like to say that I would never be able to compete on this gymnastics team," alumna Emily Mendell (Levin) said. "They've just gotten so much better. I think it has to do a lot with Tom's recruiting efforts. He's gotten some really good talent. We had a lot of fun, but we're nowhere near as good as this team. "Like I said, I wouldn't have even been exhibition. I would have been a gopher for Tom. Tom would've been like, 'Emily, go get some more ice.' " The Quakers hope the momentum of Saturday's record-setting performance will carry over to their next meet, when they host West Chester and Ursinus February 18.

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