Gymanstics earns 2nd at Ivy Classic

Things didn't look well for the Penn gymnastics squad after its first rotation at the Ivy Classic. The Quakers found themselves in third place out of four after several falls from the uneven bars and poor landings -- good enough for a 47.475. "We had a rough start on bars," Penn coach Tom Kovic said. "Not so much a rough start, just a couple of hiccups." Penn freshman Emily Petkun credits this shaky start to the overall competitiveness of the meet. "It was an intense atmosphere," she said. "Everyone was really tense and on edge. There's really nothing you can do, stuff like that just happens. We always have a lot of spirit, but at the beginning of this meet we were all on-edge and intense." But the Quakers refused to give in. After scoring a 47.875 on the beam in the second rotation, Penn was poised to make a comeback. Yet as the Quakers were warming up for their next event, the floor competition, an uncanny occurrence took place -- the uneven bars fell down while Yale was warming up. "A part that attaches to the floor became loose and we had to get in there and tighten it," Kovic said. While nobody was injured by the equipment problem, Kovic was unable to coach his gymnasts during the crucial floor competition, as he was preoccupied with fixing the bars. What he missed was Penn gymnastics history, as three athletes -- freshmen Desirae Gaspero and Laura Duros and junior Christy Green -- all delivered a near-perfect 9.9, leading the Quaker floor squad to a program-high floor score of 49.300. "I've got to hand it to my captains," Kovic said. "My captains stepped up and were able to get the team together. "The floor efforts were just tremendous, and I didn't even see it. When three kids from your team tie for the championship, that says a lot about your performance as a team." Petkun, who also delivered an impressive 9.875 on floor, believes the high scores were a result of frustration from the poor performance in the first rotation. "Floor is one of our best events," Petkun said. "It was either give it everything you got or not even try at all." After the record-breaking performance, in which all six Penn competitors broke career marks, the Quakers found themselves in the lead over second-place Yale, 144.65-144.375. The Quakers, however, came away with victories over defending champion Cornell (187.675) and Brown (189.425). Despite scoring a 47.35 on the vault, it was not enough -- Yale delivered a 47.925 on the beam, good enough to eke out a 192.3-192 win overall. Though his team was unable to come away with the Ivy title, Kovic is still proud of the comeback the Quakers made. "They came back and they fought," he said. "They performed the best they possibly could on the last three events. You can't teach that. Sure we would have loved to win the competition, but you've got to hand it to Yale. They did a great job and they deserve to win." After losing to Yale by 0.3 twice this season, Petkun is anxious for her third matchup with the Bulldogs this season at the East Coast Athletic Conference Championships. "I'm disappointed and happy at the same time," she said. "We had our second best score of the year and we had to count some falls. We still have ECAC's, though. We can kill Yale then."

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