Gymnastics seniors to end home careers tomorrow

There has never been a Penn gymnastics graduating class quite like this one. In the four seasons that these Quakers have been at Penn, the team has had unprecedented success. Four Ivy Classic titles in as many years, with each team score breaking the Classic record. Two individual Classic championships. One ECAC Championship. Three ECAC individual champions. Come tomorrow afternoon meet's against Wilson College, seniors Becky Nadler, Kirby Thorpe, Joci Newman and captain Lizzie Jacobson will compete in the last home dual meet of the season and their Penn careers. "I think this meet has special meaning for us seniors because it's the last time we'll ever be competing in Hutch," Nadler said. With that motivation, the focus of the team remains not only on Saturday's meet, but the ECAC Championships, hosted this year by the Quakers on March 18. "The meet should help us to hone and perfect our skills and gather more confidence before heading into the ECACs," Penn freshman Veena Abraham said. Coming off a strong showing at the Ivy Classic, the Quakers are looking forward to using that momentum to carry them through the rest of the season. That is not to say, however, that they are satiated by their accomplishments thus far. "As nice as Ivies was, we can definitely improve on our performances, and we are looking forward to doing that in the next three weeks," Thorpe said. Season-long consistency has kept the Red and Blue confident, and by seemingly hitting their stride beginning last month with victories against Brown and Temple and culminating with a first-place finish at the Classic, they are now focused on maintaining the routines that have worked for them of late. "Everyone has been hitting solid, clean routines at practice and the more solid we are at practice, the more likely we are to hit routines at meets and that's what we need to do consistently until the end of the season," Abraham said. In addition, the ECACs are looming ever closer on the horizon and the Quakers realize they must finish the season strongly in order to be in good position for the championship. "Just because Ivies is over doesn't mean our season is. We still have one more championship meet and two other meets [Wilson tomorrow and the Wolfpack Invitational next Saturday] that we would like to do well in. We stay focused by keeping in mind that ECACs is soon and we need to be prepared," Nadler said. For now, though, the Quakers just want to enjoy the rest of the season and take every challenge as it presents itself. "Every meet is a chance to give it our best effort and go for a good score, no matter what," Jacobson said. "The lineup may change or be the same, but we never think less of any meets. We are still thinking of our regional qualifying score [which determines the ranking of the team at the ECACs]." Expect the last dual meet at Hutch tomorrow to provide plenty of solid gymnastics and a fond farewell to one of the most successful graduating classes in Quakers history.

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