Gymnastics preps for trio of able challengers

It will be a battle of some of the youngest gymnastics teams on the east coast today as Penn heads to Towson, Md. The Quakers will take on the host Tigers as well as SUNY Brockport and James Madison University. Penn (2-0, 0-0 Ivy) is coming off its first meet of the season, beating Ursinus and West Chester last Saturday, giving coach Tom Kovic his 100th career win. Fresh off a more impressive win, however, is Division III's SUNY Brockport (1-0). On Nov. 16, the Golden Eagles defeated Syracuse, 178.55-166.20. In that meet, Eagles sophomore Jordan Christiano -- who missed making the All-American team last year by just .05 points -- won the all-around competition with a 36.00, setting a school record with a 9.5 on the vault. Brockport also set a record with a combined 46.5 on the vault and a 45.9 on the beam. While these numbers were good enough to beat Syracuse, the Golden Eagles will have to do better to beat the Quakers who scored 186.725 overall last weekend while not even starting their best gymnasts. Moreover, one might question how fresh SUNY Brockport -- a team that returns 10 letter winners and no seniors -- will be after a two-month layoff. James Madison will be competing in its first meet of the year. After rebuilding over the last two years, the Dukes now have arguably their best team ever. On its 19-member team, they have the top-10 overall highest scorers in school history and three school record-holders. The Dukes are led by a talented pair of senior captains -- Carri Elder, who holds the school record for the floor competition (9.9) and Lauren Shear, the 2002 East Coast Athletic Conference and NAACP Scholar Athlete of the Year. Nevertheless, Penn should prove to be too much for JMU. The team that will give the Quakers a challenge is Towson. The Tigers -- who return nine letter winners from last year -- finished third in their opening meet of the season, the Bahma Breeze Open, held on Jan. 10. Despite scoring an impressive 190.225, the Tigers fell to LSU and Maryland, but barely beat out Illinois (190.125). In this meet, senior captain Kristen Presutti -- last year's All-East Atlantic Gymnast League Gymnast of the Year -- scored a 39.00 overall and took the floor competition with a 9.875. The Quakers will have to improve from their first meet to compete with Presutti -- their best all-around finisher, freshman Emily Petkun, scored only a 37.0 and their best floor performer, freshman Alexandra Chalat, scored a 9.75. The other Tigers' gymnast expected to challenge Penn is Jenn Bairlein who was named to the first team EAGL for her second year in a row last year. Baierlein needs to score only 420 more points to break the all-time Towson scoring record. Last year, Towson defeated Penn, 193.875-185.925.

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