Women’s gymnastics places last in New Hampshire

Owls still looking for their first win early in season.

Women’s gymnastics finished in third out of three, going against Brown University and hosting University of New Hampshire.

Coach Aaron Murphy stressed that injuries were a critically element in the outcome of the day.

“We came in here before hand with a set line-up,” Murphy said. “The coaching staff sits down and creates the line-up for the best six of each event, and then we ended up having to switch up the line-up on all four events today.”

Sophomore Natali Ruzich was the main reason for the last minute line-up adjustments. The Hillsdale, N.J. native was scheduled to compete in three events (bars, floor, and vault) but had to withdraw from the entire meet because of back spasms. Murphy said that the team trainers will check her out and he is optimistic that she will be ready to go by next Saturday’s meet.

Sophomore Alexis Arena however, was a bright spot for the Owls. Scoring a 9.825 on the balance beam, good enough to place second amongst the three schools competing.

“She did a spectacular routine,” Murphy said. “Knowing that she beat out five of New Hampshire’s girls on beam, that is a feat in itself.

Although the Owls (0-9) once again finished in last, Murphy liked his team’s overall score improvement.

“It all depends on how you look at it,” Murphy said. “We did place third out of the three teams and that is a bit unfortunate, but we outscored what we did last week at Pittsburgh. Gymnastics is all based on score, so I was happy to see we improved from last weekend.”

Although the Owls have still yet to notch a win, the team’s overall score has improved from each consecutive meet in the young season. The Owls will look to get their first mark in the win column next Saturday at the Ken Anderson Memorial Invite hosted in Philadelphia.

Samuel Matthews can be reached at samuel.matthews@temple.edu.

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