Kovic earns 100th victory as Penn Gymnastics coach

What did the members of the Penn women's gymnastics team (2-0) do to celebrate Saturday's double-victory over Ursinus and West Chester? They baked a cake. Why? It was to celebrate coach Tom Kovic's 100th victory as skipper of the Quaker squad, more than any other coach in program history. "It was a nice surprise," Kovic said. "It was a chocolate cake and on top of the cake was the number 100 made of M&M;'s." Kovic, who is 100-54 in his 16 years at Penn, was even more impressed by the performance of his young Quakers team in its first meet of the season. "We had some injuries and so almost half of our team were freshmen," Kovic said. "I wanted to see how they'd perform, and they turned in some great performances." The Red and Blue scored a 186.725, ranking them 40th in the nation. Ursinus finished second with a 178.85 and West Chester finished last with a mark of 178.275. Despite the relatively large margin of victory, Kovic gave a lot of credit to his two opponents. "We have a long history against these two teams," he said. "We go back a long time as competitors, and their teams keep getting stronger and stronger. This year, our margin of victory was bigger than last year only because we had a lot more depth." Penn sophomore Yael Sollins was also impressed with the performance of the two schools, noting that they were both in Division II while Penn has a Division I program. "They weren't our toughest competition we'll face all year, but it was a good match to start with," she said. Kovic was especially impressed with Sollins' performance. The meet was the sophomore's first competition in over a year, after she fell off the beam last November and tore her anterior cruciate ligament. "I have the highest level of respect for her," Kovic said. "She did a remarkable job and I am very, very pleased." "It felt good to be back," Sollins said. Sollins performed as though she had never left, scoring a meet-high 9.55 on the balance beam. Penn won all four events -- bars, vault, floor and beam, recording its second-best score in the program's history on the uneven bars with a 48.0 total. "It's the most balanced team I've seen in my 16 years here," Kovic said. "We're usually good on beam and floor and rather weak on bars and vaulting, but this time our bars were the strongest. I've never seen that before. It's kind of freaky." Kovic credits this great overall performance to great team chemistry. "Team camaraderie is our strongest element," he said. "They believe in themselves and each other, and they pull through." Freshman Becca Aronson agrees. "We're all so supportive of one another," she said. Individually, freshman Emily Petkun had the highest all-around score with a 37.0. On the floor exercise, Penn took the top four places, with freshman Alexandra Chalat's score of 9.75 bringing home first place. Penn sophomore Laura Bouchelle placed first in the vault competition with a 9.625. The Quakers dominated the bars, taking the top five places. Sophomore Christina Anzalone scored a career-high 9.75 to take the top place. Despite this impressive performance, Kovic stresses that there is room for improvement. "They're giving too much away in execution. They've got to execute better and stronger," Kovic said. Aronson agreed that the win -- though lopsided -- was not up to the Quakers' potential. "Things are only going to get better," she said. "We have room for improvement and we will improve," Aronson said Some of the gymnasts were a somewhat less than thrilled that they had to miss part of their vacation to train and compete. "It was a little upsetting at first that we had to come back on the third," Sollins said. Kovic also felt bad about cutting short his team's winter break. "It's a double-edged sword," Kovic said. "You hate to bring them back, but they had a three-week break and they needed to get back into routine. I've got to hand it to them. They train very well." Next up for the Quakers is a trip to Towson where they will take on Towson, SUNY Brockport and James Madison. "Towson might give us a little run for our money," Aronson said. "But I think we can handle it and pull it off."

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