Penn aims for Classic win

the Penn gymnastics team heads to Brown this weekend for the 1998 Ivy Classic. The Penn gymnastics team heads to Brown Sunday to compete in the 1998 Ivy Classic, looking to capture its fifth team title of the past eight seasons. While taking home the first-place hardware is paramount, the Quakers are also looking to settle the score in a heated rivalry and leave the Yale Elis in the dust. If last week's basketball loss has you suffering from rivalry withdrawal, turn your attention to Brown's Pizzitola center, where Penn and Yale square off for the third time this season. Penn won Ivy Classic titles in 1991, '92, '94 and '97, while ECAC and Ivy foe Yale paced the Classic in 1993, '95 and '96. "The Yale-Penn rivalry is a very healthy rivalry," Quakers coach Tom Kovic (71-42 lifetime record) said. "When those two teams get together, whether it's a dual meet, an invitational meet or a championship meet, both teams want to come out on top." The neck-and-neck rivalry has continued this season. Yale stole a heartbreaker from the Red and Blue on January 31, winning by a mere half-point in the Quakers' only dual meet loss of the season. Last week, Penn rebounded at the Towson Invitational, downing the Elis by 0.7 points. "It is definitely to our advantage to have a victory over Yale under our belts going into the Ivy Championships this coming weekend," Penn sophomore Lizzie Jacobson said. "I think it will help give us confidence, so we can go out there and really show what we can do." Penn has several competitors who are looking to make some noise at Sunday's meet. Junior Molly Sullivan hopes to reclaim her all-around title, which she won with a 37.225 score her freshman year. Last season, Sullivan, despite suffering a shoulder injury and an illness, pulled out a 37.375, which gave her the second-place finish. Tri-captain Shilpa Rao was Penn's only titlist in 1997, winning the uneven bars. Rao also placed third on the beam. "Molly Sullivan, Lizzie Jacobson and Kathleen Gunn are all going to be contending for top all-around slots. Jenn Capasso, on balance beam, has had a very consistent year," Kovic said. "I'm confident that we're going to place several gymnasts in the top six this weekend. To come out with a couple of individual champions, that would just be icing on the cake." Among those expected to place is senior tri-captain Kathleen Gunn. Gunn, the 1997 ECAC bars champion, was expected to shine last season at the Ivy Classic but injured her head on the bars and had to pull out of the competition. One of the biggest factors affecting the scoring of Red and Blue gymnasts may come from an outside source. Penn competitors Sunday must deal with the traditionally more stringent scoring standards of New England judges. "Scoring in New England is going to be tighter, no doubt about it," Kovic said. "So my message to my team is not so much to pay attention to the scores but to pay particular attention to execution and individual performance." While Penn and Yale battle it out for the top spot, Cornell and Brown, the only other Ivy schools offering gymnastics, will be dueling for third. Though the Big Red stole one from the Bears at Ithaca earlier this season, Brown's home-gym advantage could mean the difference this week. The Ivy Classic marks the traditional transition from dual meet season to post season. Penn, currently ranked first in the ECAC, hopes to use the Ivy Classic as a springboard to their first-ever ECAC team championship and first NCAA regional tournament appearance in team history. The Quakers, who ended last season ranked No. 11 in the region, are looking to join the ranks of the elite seven teams who qualify for regionals. "We've had a successful dual meet season, and now we're looking to the post season and to get in and be successful there," Kovic said. "The seventh slot [in the NCAA Northeast Region] right now is Rutgers, with a scoring average of 186.8. Our current regional qualifying score is 185.6, so we're about a point behind. That's reachable."