Gymnastics after second straight ECAC triumph

Third-seeded Penn is the only Ivy school to have ever won the ECACs. Last March 21, the Penn gymnastics team capped off a year in which it won its second straight Ivy Classic by becoming the first Ivy League squad ever to win the ECAC Championship. This season, the Quakers won their third straight Ivy Classic and now hope to take home another ECAC crown. The meet, held this Saturday at 1 p.m. at Brown, will include all four Ivy League schools with gymnastics teams -- the host Bears, Cornell, Penn and Yale -- as well as James Madison, Vermont and William and Mary. The Quakers were already victorious over the three other Ivies at the Ivy Classic on February 28. Penn scored a 188.925 to win its sixth title of the 1990s. Brown finished a competitive second with a 186.100 and was followed by Yale and Cornell, who were both well off the Quakers' pace. It will be more difficult for the Quakers to repeat as ECAC champions, however. William and Mary and James Madison enter the meet as the top two seeded teams. Penn was seeded third out of the seven schools. The seedings are based on each school's Regional Qualifying Score. William and Mary's score is 189.71, which places the Tribe just ahead of James Madison and its 189.64 mark. The Quakers have an RQS of 188.31. That number is on the rise, though, as Penn has posted its top scores of the season in recent meets. This includes a season-best 189.550 last week at the Freedom Classic at Temple. The Red and Blue will likely need a similar score to be victorious on Saturday. "Whatever score wins, there will be three or four teams around there," Penn coach Tom Kovic said. "The team that happens to hit the most of its routines will win." Penn has already seen every ECAC competitor except for Vermont. In addition to the Ivy Classic, the Quakers competed against the other Ivies in dual meets, losing only to Brown on February 7. Penn finished behind William and Mary at the George Washington Invitational on January 23 and trailed James Madison at the Towson Invite on February 21. Each school's subsequent scores indicate that the Quakers have been the most improved team since then, however. Last year, Penn won the title by posting a school-record 190.575. The Quakers filled 12 of the 30 first-team All-ECAC spots and broke four team-scoring records in the process. Penn will have injury problems to contend at this year's ECACs, however. Senior co-captain Shannon Stafford will be unable to compete after suffering a knee injury on the vault last weekend. She is scheduled to have an MRI to determine the severity of the injury. Sophomore Jenn Capasso and senior co-captain Molly Sullivan have been bothered by minor back injuries this week. Capasso missed action in last weekend's meet because of her injury but both gymnasts are expected to compete on Saturday. Sullivan is going after her first-ever ECAC all-around title to accompany her two Ivy all-around titles, won in 1996 and again this season. She has finished between fourth and sixth individually the last three three years. "There's going to be tough competition for me since at least six others have made 38 on the all-around," said Sullivan, whose personal RQS is 38.0125. "The better I do, the more it helps the team, and that's the important thing." The Quakers will begin the competition with a bye and then perform on the beam. Penn then competes on floor, vault and bars in addition to waiting through two more byes. "The key to the meet will be for us to hit all 24 routines," junior Becky Nadler said. "We need to hit six-for-six on beam to get everyone going." The Quakers have struggled on bars this year, especially when it has been the final event of a meet. At the Towson Invitational on February 21 and at Auburn on March 12 -- where the last event in the Quakers' rotation was the bars -- Penn's overall score was hurt significantly by falls on that event. "I'm really not worried about bars," Sullivan said. "We don't have one of our byes before bars -- we'll go there straight from vault -- so we should be warmed-up and ready to go." The Quakers will need a strong finish to be able to successfully defend their ECAC title. A second straight season sweep of their two major competitions and a chance to go down as one of the best teams in Penn history depend on it.