Temple University Athletics

Casey Polizzotto
Photo by: Paige Ozaroski

Men's Gymnastics Set to Host Illinois at Chicago and Air Force

2.14.14 | Men's Gymnastics

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PHILADELPHIA – Temple men's gymnastics teams is set to host their final home meet of the 2014 season.  The Owls will host No. 9 Air Force and No. 17 Illinois at Chicago on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in McGonigle Hall.

Temple is currently ranked 16th in the standings with an average team score of 399.433 and comes into the triangular meet with a 2-10 record.  After falling to Springfield in the first home meet of the season, Temple dropped a meet to Penn State last weekend. This will mark the first time the Owls will face Air Force and Illinois at Chicago this season.

Last week's team score of 401.6 was the highest team score of the season so far for Temple.  Several Owls set season highs at Penn State.  Brendan Williams' parallel bar score of 13.7 was his highest.  Blaise Cosenza set season high marks on the parallel bar and high bar.  Scott Haddaway's scores of 14.25 on vault and 13.5 on parallel bar were also season bests for him.  Casey Polizzotto improved his bests on both the vault and parallel bar. 

Illinois at Chicago comes into the meet with an average team score of 396.767 to fall right behind temple in GymInfo's rankings.  The Flames finished second at SUNY-Brockport in a triangular meet in their last meet, finishing behind William and Mary with a score of 401.35.  Jacob Thurber took second on vault in the meet with a 14.5 and third on floor with a 14.4.  Joseph Hodges finished all-around with a score of 79.75, with his best event score coming on floor with a 14.0.

Air Force has averaged a score of 427.35 this season.  The Falcons will first travel to West Point to face Army on Friday before coming to Philadelphia on Saturday.  Two of the three highest scores in Academy history have occurred in their last two meets, pushing the Falcons up two spots in the rankings.  The Falcons are ranked seventh in the national standings on four of the six events, including the floor exercise (72.233), pommel horse (70.817), still rings (73.200) and parallel bars (71.600). Individually, Tim Wang is ranked third in the all-around (85.783) and ninth on the pommel horse (14.850). In addition, Tyler Huebner and Gared Chapman are ranked 14th (14.983) and 17th (14.883).

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