Gymnastics downs Yale

Perennial Ivy gymnastics power Yale posed little threat on Saturday as the Quakers easily downed the Elis. This time, the Ivy League's most heated gymnastics rivalry didn't live up to expectations. At least not for Yale. The Penn gymnastics team had a surprisingly easy time Saturday afternoon at Hutchinson Gymnasium, rolling to a 185.550-173.350 defeat of the Elis. Yale and Penn have combined to win the last eight Ivy Classic titles, and the result of this meet indicates that this year should belong to the Quakers. Coming off last weekend's sub-par performance at the George Washington Invitational, Penn expected another tough challenge on Saturday. Although the Quakers won the Ivy Classic last year, Yale won the dual meet 184.45-183.95 in New Haven. This year, it wasn't nearly as close. "I was very surprised by the point differential," senior co-captain Shannon Stafford said. "I thought I had misread the score when I saw it." The key to the meet was that the Quakers returned to form in the beam competition. The event, typically a strength for Penn, was the Quakers' downfall at the George Washington Invitational. On Saturday, however, it was the highest-scoring event for Penn as the Quakers combined for a score of 47.025. Junior Becky Nadler led the beam participants with a 9.725 while sophomore Jenn Capasso added a 9.575. "We definitely had improvements on the beam," sophomore Sarah Bruscia said. "It's probably the most important event; if you hit the beam, you're good to go." The top all-around competitor for Penn was senior Molly Sullivan, who netted a 37.075. Bruscia and freshman Sarah Tudryn also performed in all four events, scoring 36.325 and 36.050 points respectively. Coach Tom Kovic was especially satisfied with Penn's solid efforts on the vault and bars. The Quakers hit a combined 11-of-12 routines in the two events. Penn began the afternoon on the vault and was consequently able to gain confidence as well as some distance between themselves and Yale. Last week, the Quakers never fully recovered from a bad start at George Washington. Unfortunately, they were hurt by another injury to one of their major contributors, Tudryn. In the final event of the day, the floor exercise, Tudryn had to cut her routine short after injuring her ankle. The severity of the injury is still unknown, and Tudryn's status for this weekend's meet at Brown has not yet been determined. The Quakers are expected to get a boost against Brown from Stafford, who will be competing in the floor exercise for the first time this season after tearing her ACL last year. Junior Lizzie Jacobson, on the other hand, tore her ACL two weekends ago and will miss the rest of the season. "I'm allowed to walk now, which is nice," Jacobson said. "I have surgery in three weeks, but we haven't mapped out a plan for rehab yet." Jacobson's presence at Saturday's meet seemed to lift the spirits of her teammates. Tudryn's injury, however, cast a downer on the afternoon. "I always hate to see an athlete go down like that," Kovic said. "Sarah had really been steady and seemed to be coming into her own, but injuries are just the nature of the sport. We're going to have to be able to deal with it." Yale's woes could be partially blamed on injuries. Still, the Elis looked strong in warmups and were expected to provide a challenge, particularly after recording a team score of 184.25 against Vermont two weekends ago. Although the Elis were down only four points after the first two events, they had their slim comeback hopes wiped out when they scored just 40.275 on the floor. Stacey Johnson ended her routine prematurely after suffering an injury and received only a 3.450 out of a possible score of 10 for the event. If it weren't for the injury, the Elis would likely have finished with a more competitive team score of 179. But that still would not have been nearly enough to beat Penn. The Quakers' 185.550 will not have a major impact on their regional ranking, which they had hoped to improve on Saturday. It was good enough, however, for an important confidence-building victory over Penn's major Ivy rival of the 1990s. After last weekend's struggles at GW, the Ivy win was a much-welcomed occurrence for the Quakers.