After retaining its Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference title for the second time in consecutive years, the No.12 men’s gymnastics (17-6) will head to Penn State University tomorrow for the NCAA national championships. Competition is scheduled to start at 1 p.m.

This season has seen the Owls win a long list of accolades, including coach Fred Turoff winning ECAC Coach of the Year, assistant coach Patrick McLaughlin winning ECAC Assistant Coach of the Year, senior Alex Tighe winning the Senior Athlete of the Year Award, and ultimately ended with the ECAC title once again in the hands of Temple men’s gymnastics. It marked the 18th time in Turoff’s 37 years at the helm of the team that the Owls captured the ECAC title.

The gymnast to watch will continue to be Alex Tighe. Tighe has performed well all season and has arguably been Temple’s most consistent gymnast. After winning Senior Athlete of the Year, Tighe was honored with another accolade. The Philadelphia Inquirer named Tighe to their Men’s At-Large Academic All-Area Team, which recognizes the athlete’s performance not just in sport, but in the classroom as well. Tighe will look to keep his momentum going forward into the NCAA’s tomorrow.

On preparing for the national championships, Turoff said, “We look to having a clean meet with fewer errors than the past several meets. Since we’re going in as No.12, with the closest team having a score average over 5 points higher, climbing up will be a task, but it has happened before.”

No. 13 nationally ranked men’s gymnastics (12-6) will head to Springfield University for tomorrow’s Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships, competition begins at 7 p.m. As last year’s conference champions, the Owls will look to retain their ECAC crown.

The main competition standing in the way of back to back ECAC titles will be conference rival William and Mary. In three meets against the tribe this year, Temple went 2-1, but the past month showed some disappointing performances by the Owls and their expectations going into the ECAC’s are in suspect.

We’ve been in this situation before,” men’s coach Fred Turoff said. “The guys know they can defeat William and Mary this Friday as they have twice after an initial-meet loss to them this season. However, William and Mary has outscored us in recent meets, so they have been hitting better than we have.”

Even though William and Mary has been outscoring Temple recently, Turoff still said he believes his team will win based on how the team has looked in practice.

He said, “Since practice has been going well, I have to have a positive outlook and expect us to prevail.”

The No. 12 men’s gymnastics team (10-4) will be heading to Colorado for Thursdays 6 p.m. meet with Air Force. After getting ousted by No. 9 California Berkeley last Sunday, the Owls will look to get back in the win column against Air Force.

Graduate student Taylor Brana will aim to stay in good form for tomorrow’s meet. The native of Israel led Temple in three events last Sunday at California. Scoring a 14.200 on pommel horse, a 14.300 on rings, and tying teammate senior Alex Tighe for the Owls’ highest score on parallel bars with a 14.600.

Senior Allan Malone is also in good form heading into the meet with Air Force. Malone scored very high at California Berkley as well. The Cookeville Tenn. native led Temple scoring a 13.750 on horizontal bar, and was Temple’s highest scorer on floor exercise with a 14.900, the major contribution to the team’s overall event score of 71.1, Temple’s best apparatus score of the day.

Brana said that he was a little disappointed with the team’s outcome last week, but that he and the rest of the Owls will look to get back on track at Air Force tomorrow. Competition begins at 6 p.m.

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.

With 15 All-American scholar athletes, the gymnastics team has followed their 2011 National Academic Team title with a runner-up selection in 2012 by the College Gymnastics Association. Eleven Owls were named to the first team, with seniors Chris Mooney and Blake Collins headlining the team with four years of eligibility. Brett Statman, Alex Tighe, Zachery Aguiar, Assaf Zoor, Jeff Zack, Matt Martin, Evan Burke, Adam Al-Rokh and Taylor Brana were all selected to the first team comprised of 73 gymnasts.Scott Haddaway, Michael Bittner, Dashiell Sears and John Leonard were selected to the second team.

With a victory in the Eastern Coastal Athletic Conference Championship and a No. 10 ranking in the NCAA, the Owls have showed a commitment to excellence both in the gym and out. In April, the team recorded the highest aggregate grade point average and was awarded The Owl Trophy.