Matthews in contention at Wildcat Invitational

Freshman Brandon Matthews finds himself in contention for an individual title once again after completion of the first day of play at the Wildcat Invitational held in Malvern, PA.

The freshman’s 36-hole total of two-over-par leaves him in fourth place individually, six strokes behind University of Delaware freshman Braden Shattuck who paced the individual field with a 36-hole total of 140. Matthew’s started the day off hot firing a three-under-par score of 69 on his first 18 holes. He then cooled off shooting a five-over-par score of 77 on his second 18 holes.

As a team the Owls find themselves in sixth place out of 13 teams in the event. Behind Matthews the Owls were led by senior Devin Bibeau who finished with a 36-hole total of 151 (+7) and sophomore Paul Carbone who finished with 155 (+11). Junior Matthew Crescenzo and sophomore Matthew Teesdale rounded out the Owls with scores of 157 (+13) and 160 (+16) respectively.

Temple finished the day with a team total of 604 and trails team-leader Rhode Island by just nine shots. With six teams being within nine-shots of the leader the second-day of play at the Wildcat Invitational is sure to be unpredictable, especially with temperatures expected to be around 10 degrees lower than they were Monday during round one.

Three Owls will compete at Junior Olympic Fencing championships

This weekend four members of the women’s fencing team will have a chance to show their talent off at the national level.

Freshmen Demi Antipas, Jessica Hall, Petra Khan and Olivia Wynn will all be competing at the Junior Olympic Fencing championships. This weekend the four Owl competitors will not be competing against other schools, rather the fencers from across the country that fall in their age groups. The four freshmen are the only ones competing because of the age restrictions on the junior event.

Antipas and Wynn will compete in the foil event, Hall in epee and Khan in sabre. In the foil event Antipas and Wynn will compete in a bracket that is comprised of 160 competitors, Hall will compete with 181 competitors and Khan’s bracket has 133 entrants.

The event was not posted to the Owls’ schedule until just this week and will be held in Baltimore, MD.

Fencing to host Philadelphia Invitational

The women’s fencing team will is set to get back to action as they host the Philadelphia Invitational Saturday at the Student Pavilion. The invitational is hosted by Temple or Pennsylvania and will see the Owls compete against some of the best teams in the nation.

“It’s something that we host here in Philadelphia that started six or seven years ago,” Franke said. “We have Cornell coming down, North Carolina and Duke coming up so it’s a very good meet, we’ll have some real tough competition.”

The team will fence against six different squads in a team event where Franke says everyone has a little bit more emotion because they want to succeed not only for themselves, but for their teammates as opposed to an individual event.

“It’s much more fun, this is what college fencing is all about,” Franke said. “We use the individual tournaments really to prepare for the season, but now it’s all team competition which is really what we work for.”

Fencing team travels to Penn State

The ninth-ranked women’s fencing team will head to Penn State tomorrow for the Penn State Invitational which is sure to provide a great challenge for the team. Three of the five teams competing in the event (Penn State, Duke, Columbia) are ranked in the top ten in the nation; North Carolina, received votes in the most recent polls to crack the Top 10.

The Owls can really make a statement at Penn State; a good performance would surely lead to a nice climb in the national rankings with a good showing. Temple has not competed since Dec. 1 when they went 4-0 at the Vassar Invitation against Vassar, Sacred Heart, New York University and Pennsylvania.