Monthly Archives: February 2013

Women’s tennis to take on Georgetown

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The women’s tennis team will face Georgetown this morning at 11 a.m. at Legacy Tennis Center.

The Owls (1-5, 0-2 Atlantic 10 Conference) will look to snap a three-match losing streak against the Hoyas (4-1, 1-0 Big East Conference), who are riding a four-match winning streak.

The Hoyas will be led by junior Kelly Comolli and senior Victoria Sekely, who are both on individual three-match win streaks. They have also recently been paired together in doubles matches, and they have won all three of them,

Temple has had a difficult start to the season. Junior Alicia Doms is the only Owl with a winning record in singles play (3-2). Coach Steve Mauro has said he believes the team will break out of this slump and come together.

Owls set to take on Rhode Island in Wednesday matinee

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Coming off a win over St. Louis that coach Tonya Cardoza called one of the best overall performances the Owls have put together all season, Temple has shifted its focus to tomorrow’s matinee against Rhode Island.

            The Owls (11-12, 4-4) beat the Billikens 54-50 on Sunday Feb. 10, where four starters finished in double-figures. Senior center Victoria Macaulay had 16 points and a career-high nine blocks. Freshman forward Sally Kabengano, freshman guard Meghan Roxas, and redshirt-junior forward Natasha Thames all finished with 11 points each. Sophomore point guard Tyonna Williams went 0-for-10 from the floor, but set up her teammates all game in route to ten assists.

            Rhode Island (5-7, 0-7) is a young squad in the midst of a dismal season. The Rams have lost eleven straight games and and 12 of their last 14, with their latest defeat coming against Butler on Thursday Feb. 7. Freshman guard Tayra Melendez leads them in scoring, averaging 11 points per game. Sophomore guard Samantha Tabakman averages 8.4 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.

            Temple has had its most success playing on North Broad, going 7-3 between the Liacouras Center and McGonigle Hall this season. Rhode Island, meanwhile, is 0-8 on the road.

            The Owls and Rams will tip off at 12 pm on Wednesday Feb. 13 at the Liacouras Center.

 

Owls need three wins

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If Temple can pull off three more wins in the Atlantic 10 Conference, where it’s currently 4-4, they lock up a spot in the A-10 Tournament.

Temple holds tiebreakers over St. Bonaventure and Richmond, meaning their magic number the rest of the way is three. Virginia Commonwealth University is 2-7 but holds the tiebreaker over the Owls.

Assuming they defeat Xavier and Rhode Island (a combined 1-14 in the A-10), the Owls must beat one of the following: Dayton, St. Joseph’s, Butler or Fordham. That secures them a spot in the postseason.

Without three wins the Owls need serious help to get into the tournament.

Three of their remaining six games are at home, against Rhode Island, Xavier and Fordham.

Lacrosse season almost underway

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In 2013, the lacrosse team has taken a couple of different approaches, in preparation for this season.

Although the 2013 spring semester began on January 22, the Owls were able to come to campus a week in advance, to begin practicing. This would be the first year the team has had training camp before school began.

“I think it was one of the best decisions that the coaches made. We got a head start on practice” said senior midfielder Stephany Parcell.

“It was a really wonderful luxury. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when we don’t have any other distractions, besides your sport. As a player, as an athlete, it’s the ultimate feeling of all you worry about is playing” said coach Bonnie Rosen.

“And as a coach, I’ve always found when we have those moments, we make huge gains” Rosen added.

Another difference in the Owls preparation is the incorporation of film study.

“We implemented something that we hadn’t really done in the past, which was watching film as a team. One day with the attack, one day with the defense. Trying to get everyone to know that we need to be prepared for games” Parcell said.

Tennis match cancelled

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The men’s tennis match against Davidson that was scheduled for tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. has been cancelled.

The match was due to be played at the Atlantic Club in Manasquan, NJ. Manasquan is a shore town, and is under a Winter Storm Warning from today at 3 PM to Saturday at 6 AM. Therefore, it is likely to be unsafe for both Temple and Davidson to travel there.

The Owls’ Sunday match at Old Dominion is still set to take place. That will be at 1 p.m.

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.