Feb. 22, 2007

PHILADELPHIA - The Temple women's gymnastics team will travel to College Park, MD this Friday February 23 at 7:00 p.m. The quad-meet will feature host Maryland, New Hampshire and James Madison University.

This Friday's quad-meet also serves as a fundraiser. Billed as the "Terps for a Cure," the host team looks to raise money for the awareness of breast cancer. ACC Select will be broadcasting the meet live, via online stream. Please visit www.accselect.com for instructions on how to view the competition.

Expected to be Temple's toughest competition of the season, the Owls will go against two nationally-ranked teams, with #32 Maryland and #33 New Hampshire. Both teams have a RQS of just below 192.000. Seeing that Temple has only competed in five competitions, they are unable to compile a RQS until the completion of this weekend's meet.

Head coach Aaron Murphy feels confident for the match up, despite having to rest junior Alycia Petitto. Petitto, who suffered a bone bruise in her knee last weekend while warming up a handspring piked front vault, will be out of competition for at least two weeks.

"Alycia has been a rock for us on the vault and balance beam all season. While she'll be missed, especially on vault, we have the depth to play around with the line up a bit," said Murphy.

As of right now, it looks as if senior co-captain Sarah Liebowitz will fill in on the vault, with sophomore Natasha Crawford looking to compete on the precarious balance beam.

"Natasha's consistency during the week has been quite impressive," added Murphy.

The Owls will also have to do without sophomore Christine McNeil on the uneven bars. A toe injury which required stitches will keep her on the sidelines, as freshman Danielle Viens will most likely fill the spot. Viens, who's competed only on the floor exercise this season for the Owls, has a full repertoire of skills, including a huge reverse hecht. In order to solidify the spot in the line up, she has one more opportunity to prove her consistency in the gym.

As usual, Murphy looks to his experienced senior class of Liebowitz, co-captain Jillian Kornett and Noelle Moore to provide the leadership for this weekend's competition. Moore will actually go head to head with her twin sister, Heather, who competes for the University of New Hampshire. Due to various injuries from both athletes, this will be the first time the twins compete simultaneously in a college competition.

In addition to his three seniors, Murphy looks to a talented group of specialists which include Desiree Meredith, Winter Sneed, Nikki Berrian and Tiffany Shephard to chip in with big scores.