Temple falls to Gymnastics in final rotation

The Gymnastics team topped Temple with its best score of the year. After opening the season with a challenging road trip, the Penn gymnastics team eagerly anticipated a return to Hutch. The trip was successful, including a victory at Cornell, a strong second-place showing at the GW Invitational, and a narrow, half-point loss at undefeated Yale, but the team still anticipated competing on their home floor. In their home opener last night, the Quakers(2-1) defeated cross-town rival Temple with their strongest point performance of the season, 185.850-185.275. The meet was decided in the final event. Though the Quakers' home crowd cheered the final-rotation announcement that Penn led 138.650-137.725, the official scorecard reveals that Penn actually trailed at that point by .625 points. Thus, the outcome of the meet was still very much in doubt as Penn headed into the floor routine and Temple prepared for the balance beam. The meet marked the second time this season that the Quakers faced Temple. At the GW Invitational in January, the Red and Blue defeated the Owls by 4.5 points. Penn coach Tom Kovic expected the Owls to come in prepared and ready for the meet. "Temple is very well coached. Ken Anderson has been there 13 years," Kovic said. "I'm looking for them to come in and do the best job they can. Our job is to stick right to the mission of the program this year, and that is to do good, consistent gymnastics." The tenth-year Penn coach hoped the two days of practice since the Yale meet would help the team improve on its routine-hit percentage, landing routines without needing to count falls. Penn opened the event with a solid 46.100 performance on the vault. However, in the next event, the uneven bars, the Quakers witnessed the very problem Kovic was hoping to avoid. "We were a little bit flat on bars, I mean we counted unnecessary falls," Kovic said. The Red and Blue managed to rebound from the bars, shifting the momentum of the meet with an impressive performance on the beam, scoring 47.250 points. Freshman Jennifer Capasso got things moving on the beam, starting the Quakers off with a 9.600. Sophomore Lizzie Jacobson paced Penn on the beam with a personal score of 9.725. That tally was just 0.025 points shy of tying the school's individual beam record, set last year by Becky Nadler. "9.725 on the beam!" Kovic said. "Lizzie was awesome!" Right before the floor routine, Penn tri-captain Shilpa Rao rushed over to her friends in the bleachers. The Quakers fans were urged by the tri-captain, with a smile. "You can make some noise, too, you know," Rao said. Aided by the cheering crowd and riding the momentum of their beam performance, the Quakers put up a score of 47.200. As Temple recorded a score of 46.250 on the beam, Penn nosed ahead for the victory, 185.850-185.275. "[The gymnasts'] confidence level was very high coming off balance beam with such a good performance, that they went in and hit six of the best floor routines that I've seen them hit this year," Kovic said after the meet. This match held extra significance for coach Kovic, who starred at Temple in the 70s and competed against Owls coach Ken Anderson in high school on Long Island. "Ken Anderson and I go way back," Kovic said. "We have a long competitive history and Ken is a personal friend of mine. Am I a proud alumnus of my alma mater? You bet I am. But when push comes to shove, at 6 o'clock, I'm wearing red and blue." Following the long season-opening road trip, the victory over Temple was a huge morale boost for the Quakers, who pulled together as a team in their home opener. "It's great to have the home crowd there. I think the team really got together today and cheered everyone on," tri-captain Kathleen Gunn said. "We carried the momentum through the final events." Gunn achieved an all-around score of 36.975 points for Penn. Penn's season-high score of 185.850 leaves the Quakers, last year's Ivy champs, with high hopes for Saturday's homecoming against a much-improved Brown team (Hutchinson Gym, 1 p.m.). "Now you've got the team just emotionally pumped up and ready to go," Kovic said. "185.850 points basically puts us on track for where we should be." "It's great to be back at Penn competing, and to have a good home crowd behind you is just going to make our team perform better."