Jan. 23, 2007

PHILADELPHIA - The Temple women's gymnastics team (0-2) will host Rutgers in dual-meet action this coming Wednesday, January 24th at 7:00 p.m. in McGonigle Hall. The Owls will look to bounce back after finishing third (182.650) behind Towson (191.175) and Ursinus (184.150) last Friday evening.

Head coach Aaron Murphy is still playing around a little with his line-ups, but will look to sophomore Christine McNeill to contribute on the uneven parallel bars squad. McNeill, who tore her achilles tendon early in last year's pre-season, has taken her time to get back to full-strength. Based on her consistent bar work during this week's training, Murphy feels confident that she can contribute on the risky event.

At the Ursinus and Towson competition, senior Noelle Moore was the Owls top-scorer with a 9.700 on floor exercise, which was good enough for first place on the event. Murphy will once again look to Moore for leadership and consistency on that event, along with the vault and balance beam. Senior co-captains Sarah Liebowitz and Jillian Kornett will also play a key role as the Owls look to improve upon there 182.650 score at last week's meet.

Both teams will be putting up eight gymnasts on each event (two counting as exhibition), with only the first six going toward the team total.

"Both the Rutgers' coach [Chrystal Chollet-Norton] and I have a lot of new talent that we need to put out on the floor. Having these extra 2 slots will give us a chance to see what some of these new girls can do under pressure," said Murphy.

The last time Temple faced Rutgers in regular season dual-meet action was on January 25, 2006 when the Scarlet Knights defeated the Owls 191.65-184.675.

Temple, which has a very tough schedule for it's first week of the season (three meets in nine days), will head over to Penn this Saturday, January 27th for a dual-meet in Hutchinson Gym. The competition, which is scheduled for 1:00 p.m., will also feature the Towson Tigers.