Temple University Athletics
Owls Set Sights on Shelli Calloway Invitational
2.15.07 | Women's Gymnastics
Feb. 15, 2007
PHILADELPHIA - The Temple women's gymnastics team (4-5), ranked third in the ECAC, will travel to Towson on Saturday, February 17 to participate in the Shelli Calloway Memorial Invitational. Formerly named the Towson Invitational, this meet will feature six of the conferences top teams. In addition to the ECAC's top team Towson, second-ranked Penn, fifth-ranked Cornell, seventh-ranked Ursinus, and ninth-ranked James Madison will round out the field.
Coming off of a season-high of 190.100 at the Liberty Classic, the Temple team is seeking to match or better their top score. At the beginning of next week, the national and conference rankings will be tallied by regional qualifying score (RQS). The RQS consists of the top three home and top three away scores. Temple will not be figured into the RQS for another additional week because they will have only participated in five meets for the season. In order to stay in the top three in the conference, the Owls will look to drop their 182.650 season-opening score at Ursinus. Temple and Towson are the only two teams in the conference to break the 190.000 barrier as they head into the halfway point of the 2007 season.
The Owls didn't have a competition scheduled for last weekend, and head coach Aaron Murphy see's that as a blessing in disguise.
"We had a flu rip through our team right after the Liberty Classic. It got to the point where only half the team was even in the gym to practice. Had I originally scheduled a meet for last weekend, I don't think I would've been able to put six girls up on each event. I'm happy to say that the team is healthy again, and the level of gymnastics they've been showing all week in workouts has been very high," said Murphy.
Coach Murphy says that his vaulting team is so consistent at this time that breaking into the top 6 will be very difficult. The uneven bars and balance beam have the most depth, as several women have raised their level of difficulty. Among them is junior Alycia Petitto, who's added a new combination into her bar routine of Healy-immediate straddle back to handstand. "It's all about who hits in practice. As a coach, I'm glad I have the luxury of making such a difficult decision with these line ups," said Murphy.
Floor exercise has also been coming along quite nicely, with a handful of competitors consistently hitting some big tumbling. Again, coach Murphy will have to use some strategy to see which group of girls can compile the highest scores.
After the Shelli Calloway Memorial, the Owls will head down to College Park, MD to square-off against a very strong Maryland team. New Hampshire and James Madison will round out the field at the quad meet-scheduled for Friday, February 23 at 7:00 p.m.
The Temple women will then come home to host its final home meet of the season, which will be a dual-meet with Rhode Island. The March 3 meet will also honor the teams five senior student-athletes, who will be competing for the last time in front of the McGonigle Hall crowd. The Temple - Rhode Island dual-meet is scheduled for a 1:00 p.m. start.
