Women set to travel to Ursinus College

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The women’s gymnastics team will be traveling to Collegeville, PA.,
Sunday for a 1 p.m. meet with Ursinus College.

The Owls (2-13) are fresh off of their first two wins of the season at
last week’s Ken Anderson Memorial Invite, and look to carry that
moment going into tomorrow.

The beam line-up, will once again try to help lead the team to an
overall victory. Anchored by Junior Sylvie Borschel, junior and team
captain Heather Zaniewski, sophomore Alexis Arena, senior Jean Alban,
and sophomore Taylor Rakus, the beam event has been Temple’s strongest
event all season.

However, the Owls also should improvement in the other three events
(floor exercise, bars, and vault) at the Ken Anderson Invite as well.
Coming in second place overall on each apparatus.

The vault line-up performed especially well, scoring a 48.275. Led by
sophomore Stephanie Verry, the vault line-up will again try to score
high and aid the beam line-up in helping Temple achieve an overall
victory at Ursinus.

Tighe advances to finals

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Senior gymnast Alex Tighe will be advancing to the final day of
competition at the Winter Cup held in Las Vegas. The Brookfield WI.,
native placed 11th on high bar and 17th on pommel horse, good enough
to advance through the preliminary rounds of approximately 92
gymnasts.

Although Tighe advanced, he was still not completely satisfied with his day.

“It was some good, some bad,” Tighe said. “I had a nice pommel horse
routine, it was nice and clean, not too much difficulty.”

Tighe scored a 13.600 on the apparatus, however, the routine Tighe was
most looking forward to having a good showing in was parallel bars and
that did not go well.

“Unfortunately it was a disaster, it was the event I was most hopeful
for having a good showing. I had a very difficult routine, but it just
wasn’t my day,” Tighe said.

Tighe was able to bounce back for his routine on high bar, scoring a 13.85.

“I was able to turn around quickly and get myself in a good mind frame
to do a nice high bar routine to finish off the meet,” Tighe said.

Tighe will be competing in the finals starting Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Women failing to build streak

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Wednesday’s loss to Charlotte (17-4, 6-1 in the Atlantic 10 Conference) marked the fourth time this season the Owls failed to build a three-game winning streak.

Temple (10-12, 3-4 in the A-10) knocked off Richmond and Massachusetts in back-to-back games before falling to the Rams 66-43. On three other occasions this season the Owls came into a game with two wins in a row and promptly lost.

Back in November they dropped Seton Hall and Northeastern before falling to Rutgers at home 66-50. They followed that up with wins over Bowling Green and Syracuse before being upset by Kent State 71-62. Then after going winless for a month Temple defeated Western Michigan and St. Bonaventure before Virginia Commonwealth handed them a 53-51 loss.

The Owls have followed up back-to-back wins by losing by an average of 12.5 points the next game. With just seven games remaining in the regular season the Owls won’t be able to match their 13-game and 15-game winning streaks from the previous two years.

Coach Tonya Cardoza’s record of at least one five-game winning streak in a season is also in jeopardy if they Owls can’t string a few together.

Temple has winnable games against Saint Louis Sunday and Rhode Island next week before they face a 16-5 (7-0 in the A-10) S.t Joseph’s squad, setting up yet another possibility of not winning three straight.

It’s not exactly the road map this team had in mind.

 

Women’s tennis to take on Richmond

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The women’s tennis team will go up against Richmond tomorrow at noon at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

The match will be played at Penn because Legacy, the normal Temple home court, is not available. The Owls (1-4, 0-1 Atlantic 10 Conference) are looking for their first victory against Richmond (1-3, 0-0 A-10) since February 2008.

 

“Richmond will be a tough match,” coach Steve Mauro said. “We’ll do our best and hopefully we can come out on top.”

 

The Spiders will be led by sophomore Melissa Kandinata, who has played in the top singles flight in every match this year. She is 1-3 in those matches. Temple junior Yana Mavrina will likely be her opponent. She has also played in the top flight each time, and is 1-4.

 

Horton removed from team

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Freshman forward Leah Horton has been told she won’t be rejoining the women’s basketball team this season, as confirmed by head coach Tonya Cardoza.

Cardoza said Horton’s conditioning and lackadaisical work ethic are the primary reasons why she will no longer be practicing or traveling with the Owls for the foreseeable future.

Horton played in just three games this season, a transition year for the Owls in which five other freshmen have seen significant playing time. Horton last played on Dec. 6 against Kent State. She played a career-high 18 minutes against Seton Hall on Nov. 14, recording three points and five rebounds.

While she is no longer welcome back this season, Cardoza said she has not ruled out the possibility of Horton returning to the team next fall.

 

Tyler Sablich can be reached at tyler.sablich@temple.edu or on Twitter @TySablich.

Horton no longer with women’s basketball

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Freshman forward Leah Horton has been told she won’t be rejoining the women’s basketball team this season, coach Tonya Cardoza confirmed Wednesday.

Cardoza said Horton’s conditioning and lackadaisical work ethic are the primary reasons why she will no longer be practicing or traveling with the Owls for the foreseeable future.

Horton played in three games this season, a transition year for the Owls in which five other freshmen have seen significant playing time. Horton last played on Dec. 6 against Kent State. She played a career high 18 minutes against Seton Hall on Nov. 14, recording three points and five rebounds.

While she is no longer welcome back this season, Cardoza said she has not ruled out the possibility of Horton returning to the team next fall.

–Tyler Sablich

Pair of gymnasts win ECAC honors

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Men’s gymnastics was honored with two recipients winning this week’s Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference awards.

Senior Alex Tighe was awarded ECAC Co-Gymnast of the Week, sharing the award with Army freshman Jesse Glenn. Freshman Jon Rydzefski was awarded ECAC Rookie of the Week.

Last Friday at the 22nd annual West Point Open, the Owls were guided to victory by the performances of Tighe and Rydzefski. Tighe worked three events to help pace Temple, as they captured the team competition, but the day belonged to Rydzefski. The Leominster, MA., native came in third place in the all-around with a career best score of 81.200.

The duo followed up Friday’s performance with an even better one on Saturday for the individual event finals.

Rydzefski medaled in two of the six events, placing in third on parallel bars scoring a 13.800, and then second on high bars with a score of 13.750. Yet, he was bested by Tighe who won both apparatuses, outscoring all of the competition in both high bar (14.300) and parallel bars (14.300), to win the event titles.

Both of their performances were enough to earn them their respective ECAC weekly honors.

Men’s gymnastics will have the week off, with the exception of Tighe who has been invited to participate in this year’s Winter Cup held in Las Vegas, and a chance to qualify for the USA Championships in Hartford, CT this summer. The competition begins tomorrow at noon.

Tighe invited to Las Vegas

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Temple University will send one gymnast to Las Vegas this Thursday to
compete in the Winter Cup.

The Winter Cup is a field of the best 92 gymnast in the country.
Senior Alex Tighe is the lone recipient from Temple to receive an
invite.

Tighe looks to be able to get past the preliminaries on Thursday, and
make it to the finals on Saturday.

“The goal is to go out, hit my routines, and make the finals,” Tighe said.

The same aspirations were spoken by coach Fred Turoff.

“For the Winter Cup,” Turoff said. “I’d like [Tighe] to improve upon
his finish, and advance to the second day of competition. If he hits
his routines as he did the event finals at the West Point Open, I
think he has a good chance to do that.”

The preliminaries begin this Thursday at noon, and the finals will
begin Saturday starting at 7:30 p.m.

Free throw shooting an asset for women’s basketball

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It doesn’t get talked about nearly enough but free throw shooting is a valuable factor in any team’s success (or lack thereof).

Temple, through all its ups and downs this season, has been fairly consistent in this department.

During the Atlantic 10 Conference season the Owls are shooting 73.2 percent from the stripe, converting 60 of their 82 attempts. That ranks fifth in the conference behind Fordham, Saint Joseph’s, La Salle and St. Bonaventure.

Two Owls also grace the Top 15 in that category. Sophomore guard Tyonna Williams is third in the conference with 91.3 percent on 23 attempts while senior center Victoria Macaulay has converted 81.5 percent of her 27 freebies.

Macaulay’s numbers show just how much she’s improved in that department. Last season she made just 64 percent of her free throws during conference play and 67.7 percent overall.

Williams and Macaulay’s success in that department has been part of the reason their scoring numbers are as high as they are.

But while the duo has combined for 50 freebies this A-10 season, the team only has 82. That’s third lowest in the conference. Temple just doesn’t force teams to foul them.

With that kind of success at the line the team should figure out more ways to get fouled and convert those easy opportunities.

–Jake Adams

Tournament hopes dim with improved conference

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This season with the influx in Atlantic 10 Conference teams in Butler and Virginia Commonwealth University, the conference tournament adds four new teams this season.

In past years the Owls had to be one of the top eight teams in the A-10 to dance in the postseason. This season the Owls have to be 12th or better.

Currently Temple is in ninth as they get set to take on Massachusetts, which is 13th. As the season is shaping up the Owls need to stay to as close to .500 as possible to ensure a middle seed.

With a win, Temple will make sure that four teams have one win or fewer in the conference, providing a comfortable cushion as they try and build a winning streak and head into the postseason with momentum.

If they can’t get a head of steam going at least the Owls have some extra room to play with this season.

-Jake Adams