Author Archives: Joey Cranney

Two Owls named to women’s soccer A-10 All-Rookie Team

Posted on by

Freshmen goalkeeper Shauni Kerkhoff and defender Erin Lafferty were named to the Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team, it was announced today.

In preparation for the A-10 tournament which begins on Nov. 1, the conference released its annual awards on Wednesday which honored the two Temple standout freshmen.

On the season, Kerkhoff split time in goal mainly with redshirt-senior goalkeeper Tara Murphy along with senior goalkeeper Gillian Kacsuta. In her 2012 campaign, Kerkhoff recorded three wins, four shutouts of the team’s seven total and made 63 saves.

In her 11 appearances, Kerkhoff started nine matches and posted a 0.83 goals against average, along with the A-10’s highest save percentage at .887.

Lafferty made an immediate impact for coach Gwilliam’s defensive-minded team. Lafferty started each of Temple’s 20 matches this season, while posting five shots.

Lafferty added one goal to her 2012 season resume, as she notched her first collegiate goal in a match against Rhode Island on Oct. 12.

Both Kerkhoff and Lafferty were the first Owls to receive the A-10 All-Rookie Team honor since senior teammate Kate Yurkovic received the honor in her first season with the Owls in 2009.

-John Murrow

Briglia selected to NFHCA game

Posted on by

After scoring a goal in a winning effort during her last home game at Geasey Field, Katie Briglia’s week just got better.

The senior midfielder was selected to participate in the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division I Senior Game on Nov. 17.

Briglia has scored six goals and has a team-leading 11 assists this year.

Although Briglia’s numbers may not stand out, this senior has done it all for the Owls over the past four years.

Since her freshman year, Briglia has played in all but three games throughout her career at Temple. Briglia has started every game for the Owls since 2010.

This season, the lone senior and co-captain has played everywhere on the field except for goalkeeper.

For Temple, this isn’t their first player to be selected to the NFHCA Senior Game.

Briglia is the seventh senior in six years to be selected to represent the Owls in the game, and she is one four Atlantic 10 Conference players selected to the team this year.

-Colin Tansits

Volleyball fights for playoff spot against Charlotte

Posted on by

Less than 24 hours after dropping its fourth match in five contests, the volleyball team is set to take on Atlantic 10 Conference opponent Charlotte (9-12, 1-8 in A-10) Sunday.

Temple (15-9, 5-5 in A-10) dropped their match against Virginia Commonwealth University Friday night, noticeably lost throughout the match and unable to generate any momentum. Charlotte is coming off a four-set victory over La Salle.

“I think Charlotte is much better than they’re record shows,” coach Bakeer Ganes said Thursday. “They lost some tight matches. I don’t think we can take them lightly.”

The Owls are trying to remain a game ahead of Fordham for the sixth and final conference playoff spot, with a head-to-head tiebreaker against the Rams, and just four games remaining in the regular season.

The match is set to start at 7 p.m.

-Jake Adams

Women’s soccer hosts La Salle on Senior Day

Posted on by

On Sunday, Oct. 28, the women’s soccer team will honor their eight seniors on Senior Day as the Owls host city rival La Salle at the Ambler Sports Complex.

The final match of the 2012 regular season was originally scheduled for 1 p.m., but has been moved to 11 a.m. because of uncertain weather later on Sunday.

While the Owls were officially knocked out of contention for the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament with a loss to Fordham on Friday, the Explorers are still fighting for the top seed in the A-10, as they currently sit on top in the standings above Dayton.

“La Salle still has a ton to play for,” coach Matt Gwilliam said. “Any dent in their record will hurt their chances, and since this is a local game, it makes it that much more special.”

After a 3-0 loss on to Fordham on Friday, Oct. 26, the Owls will do whatever it takes to get a win for the eight departing seniors one last time, Gwilliam said.

“Sunday is definitely going to be a tough game,” freshman midfielder Paige Rachel said. “[La Salle] is a very good team and their record indicates it.”

Entering the final game of the season, the Owls will once again look to top their win total from 2011, as they are in search of their sixth win of the year. Temple will begin Sunday with a 5-12-2 record (2-6-0 in A-10), while La Salle will begin with a 14-4-0 record (8-0-0 in A-10).

“Hopefully we will come out flying,” Gwilliam said. “Our kids are really excited to play this game and we will leave nothing on the table.”

La Salle will enter Sunday winners of 11 of their last 12 matches, and have not lost a game on the road since Sept. 9.

“Hopefully just to have fun, and hopefully a win, but most importantly just to enjoy the last game together as a team,” senior defender Kate Yurkovic said she expects with her last game as an Owl.

-John Murrow

Women’s rowing readies for final meet

Posted on by

The women’s rowing team will be competing for the last time in 2012 Saturday in the Head of Schuylkill Regatta. The Owls will be racing in three events.

The regatta will be the first time the team has competed together since Oct. 13, 2012. Last weekend, one boat traveled to Boston for the Head of the Charles Regatta. The boat placed seventh out of 46 and qualifying for next year’s Head of the Charles Regatta.

The rest of the Owls stayed in Philadelphia to participate in the Philadelphia Children’s Foundation 2.25 Regatta. With some upperclassmen in Boston, the other Owls placed second and fourth behind La Salle whose boats placed first and third.

With the entire team together Saturday, new coach Rebecca Smith Grzybowski expects the Owls to have a true race mentality.

The first event, the women’s open fours with coxswain final, will begin at 9:40 a.m. The Owls will have two boats in this race.

Next, the event will be the women’s open club eights final beginning at 11:40 a.m. The Owls will have two boats in this race.

The Owls will wrap up the Regatta and the season with the women’s open heavy championship eights final which will start at 2:40 p.m. The Owls will again race two boats.

-Liam McKenna

Cross country set to host A-10 Championships

Posted on by

The men’s and women’s cross country teams will host the rest of the Atlantic 10 Conference Saturday morning at Belmont Plateau in the A-10 Championships, the program’s final one before moving to the Big East Conference next season.

Having the meet at Temple’s practice course is an advantage coach Adam Bray hopes will be “huge.”

“I expect that it’s going to be pretty muddy and sloppy,” Bray said. “It’s been wet the past couple weeks, and there have been high school meets there so it’s being run on. That’s another advantage that goes in our favor because we know what the course has to offer, and we’ve done workouts on it.”

Junior Will Kellar, who led the team at last year’s A-10’s in Charlotte with a 36th place finish, voiced a similar opinion to that of Bray’s. Additionally, he is glad the team doesn’t have to travel as far as it has in years past.

“I think it’s going to be to our benefit to race there,” Kellar said. “We’ve been training there, pretty much all semester. And not only have we been training there, but it’s so close. It’s really convenient for us to not have to travel half way across the state or up and down the East Coast to get to the meet.”

Senior Rayna Kratchman says the team is looking to make more of an impact at this year’s race.

“I think definitely being a senior and the other runners on our team are very motivated to have the best race of our time at Temple and to hopefully do the best that we have at A-10’s thus far because we haven’t really made that impact on A-10’s yet,” Kratchman said. “But I think this year we’re going to come through and prepare for the Big East, and show that we’re ready.”

Redshirt senior Travis Mahoney and sophomore Jenna Dubrow have led their teams in every race they have participated in this year, and are the favorites to do so again tomorrow.

Last year’s A-10’s were won by La Salle on both the men’s and women’s sides, while Temple placed 10th and 12th, respectively.

The women’s 5k race will kick off at 10 a.m., while the men’s 8k is set for a 10:45 a.m. start time.

–Avery Maehrer

Volleyball hosts A-10 newcomer VCU

Posted on by

The Owls (15-8, 5-4 in the Atlantic 10 Conference) return home this weekend with five games remaining in conference play.

On Friday they take on A-10 newcomer Virginia Commonwealth University, who is off to a hot start at 7-2 in the conference, tied with Xavier for second. The Rams are coming off three straight sweeps, against fellow newcomer Butler, George Washington and Duquesne.

“I think it’s going to be a really tough weekend for us because they’re very big and very physical,” coach Bakeer Ganes said. “I think it really comes down to ball handling.”

“There’s a lot of excitement in this match on our part,” VCU coach James Finley said. “The girls have had it marked. They’re looking forward to going and we know it’s going to be a really tough match.”

Temple will be looking to ride the hot hand of junior outside hitter Gabriella Matautia, who recorded 30 and 25 kills in her two matches last weekend against Fordham and Rhode Island, respectively.

This is the teams’ only matchup as conference foes, with Temple set to leave for the Big East following this season.

The match begins at 7 p.m. in McGonigle Hall.

-Jake Adams

Women’s soccer hopes to keep season alive versus Fordham

Posted on by

Coming off a winless weekend on the road, the women’s soccer team will look to rebound in its final weekend of the season as the Owls take on Fordham at 3 p.m. at the Ambler Sports Complex Friday.

After two losses last weekend to Atlantic 10 Conference rivals Butler and Saint Louis, the Owls have not given up this season and have no plans to, freshman midfielder Paige Rachel said.

“Fordham is a very hard working, fit, and direct team,” coach Matt Gwilliam said. “We match up with them very well and we will play our backs up against the wall.”

As the season is winding down to its final two matches, Temple has one last chance to make a bid for a spot in the A-10 tournament, as eight teams in the conference will head to Rhode Island on Nov. 1.

With two wins this weekend and a few losses for the teams above the Owls in the standings, all the chips will have to fall into place for Temple, Gwilliam said.

One player to watch for Fordham is senior forward Annie Worden, who has 14 career goals, five of which were game winning goals.

Last season, it was Ram’s forward Kristina Maksuti that scored the lone goal for Fordham in the 1-0 shutout over the Owls on Oct. 2, 2011.

Temple will enter Friday’s match with a 5-11-2 record (2-5-0 in A-10), while Fordham will begin play with a 7-10-0 record on the season (3-4-0 in A-10).

While the Owls will be looking for their third win in A-10 conference play, the Rams will be in search for their second win of the season while playing on the road, as Fordham is 1-5 as the away team this season.

With Friday’s game, the Owls will also look to grab their sixth win of the season, something the team has not done since 2010.

“[Temple] has not given up and we still have a lot to prove,” Rachel said.

-John Murrow

Field hockey travels to Massachusetts

Posted on by

With only two games left in the regular season, the field hockey team is heading north to take on Atlantic 10 Conference opponent Massachusetts Friday.

The Minutemen are 4-1 in the conference and currently riding a five game winning streak, most recently beating St. Joseph’s University by a score of 5-1.

Like the Owls, Massachusetts’ only loss in the A-10 has come against Richmond.

Senior forward Nicole Cordero leads the Minutemen with 12 goals, while senior midfielder Kim Young has a team-leading eight assists.

Coach Amanda Janney said that she wants to see Temple’s game plan at work.

“We’ve been working on a couple different things, and we need to make sure our game plan is working,” Janney said. “Against [Richmond] it worked for 50 minutes, but not 70 minutes, so we need to make sure we complete the game.”

The last meeting the Owls had with Massachusetts was in the first round of the A-10 Championship last season at St. Joe’s. Temple won the game 4-0.

The Owls will be looking to sophomore forward Amber Youtz, who has 20 goals on the year. Youtz needs one goal to surpass Bridget Settles’ mark of 20 goals scored last season.

Along with Youtz, redshirt-sophomore goalkeeper Lizzy Millen will be looking for her first shut out of the year. Last season, Millen shut out the Minutemen before going on to receive the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award.

Both teams are looking to pick up a win and head into their final conference games with an assured spot in the playoffs.

-Colin Tansits

Men’s soccer gears up for final road weekend

Posted on by

Coming off disappointing outings against Butler and Saint Louis, the men’s soccer team’s schedule doesn’t get any easier this weekend.

Temple has road matches against Atlantic 10 Conference rivals Fordham Friday and La Salle Sunday.

Both team’s feature top-notch goalies. Fordham’s sophomore goalkeeper Sean Brailey has posted a .833 save percentage, while La Salle’s junior goalkeeper John McCarthy has recorded a .857 save percentage. McCarthy is ranked No. 4 in the nation in that category.

“We know they’re going to be very close games,” coach Dave MacWilliams said. “I think the key is getting on the board early against these teams. I think because of their goalies and the way these teams play, the first goal is going to very important. We have to opportunistic in the box and when we get chances we need to bury them.”

Last weekend, the Owls match against Butler ended in a double-overtime draw after they led the Bulldogs 3-0 with 15 minutes left in regulation. Temple became lax and their sub-par efforts came back to devastate them. Sunday against Saint Louis, Temple was outplayed in every aspect by the nationally ranked Billikens, losing 3-1.

MacWilliams said he was disappointed in the way his team played and that he would have been satisfied coming away with one win and one loss.

“The positive side is that we only have one loss in the conference,” MacWilliams said. “It was a lesson learned for us, we want to learn from our mistakes. I think Friday’s game took a lot out of us physically and mentally. We can’t let what happened [last weekend] hurt us moving forward.”

With three games remaining in the regular season, Temple is 7-5-3 overall and 3-1-2 in A-10 play. They lost to Fordham last season 1-0 in overtime.

The Rams are 5-5-3 overall and 1-2-2 in conference play in 2012. La Salle is 8-5-2 with an in-conference record of 2-3.

Friday’s road match against Fordham will begin at 7 p.m.

-Tyler Sablich