Steiner tears ACL as tennis loses in semis

Senior Elyse Steiner’s injury will keep her out for the fall season, but help is on the way from transfer Delana Kramer and freshman May Johnson.

The women’s tennis team got off to a rough start this weekend at the Cissie Leary Invitational on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus when it lost a key player, senior Elyse Steiner, for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

“It was a really big disappointment. She worked really hard all summer,” coach Steve Mauro said.

Despite the loss, the Owls played well over the weekend. Senior Anastasiia Rukavyshnykova led the team in the opening day of play by beating Columbia sophomore Eliza Matache and junior Natalia Christenson in straight sets, 6-1, 6-2 and 6-0, 6-2.

“It was nice to see her play so well after a nice season last year,” Mauro said.

Rukavyshnykova finished last season with an 8-1 record in singles play and entered the year with a combined 35-10 record throughout her collegiate career.

On Saturday, junior Theresa Stangl won her two singles matches to lead the team by downing Columbia’s Christenson 6-1, 6-2 and Penn sophomore Daniela DePaoli 4-1. Freshman Katharina Mittag opened her collegiate career by winning her lone singles match with scores of 6-1, 6-0.

On Sunday, Stangl faced off against Yale junior Stevi Petrilli in the Invitational semifinals, which she lost 6-1, 6-4, ending the Owls’ three-day run at Penn.

With the loss of Steiner, the Owls are looking forward to freshman sensation May Johnson from Australia, who will join the team in January. Johnson is a Top 20 player in Australia in the under-18 category. The team is also getting Delana Kramer, a transfer from Massachusetts, a player Mauro expects to make an immediate impact.

“She is going to be a really big part of our program. We are really looking forward to her getting on campus.” Mauro said.

Come January, the team will really be global with six different players from six different countries: junior Stephany Almansa from Colombia, junior Josephine Bergman from Sweden, Mittag from Germany, junior Lucie Pazderova from the Czech Republic and Rukavyshnykova from Ukraine.

Until then, the team must make do without Steiner. The Owls are in action again this weekend in a match against Big 5 rival Saint Joseph’s. The following weekend, they play in a tournament in Bethlehem, Pa., and then close out the fall schedule with a three-day tournament in New Haven, Conn., Oct. 23-25.

Ryan Rosengrant can be reached at ryan.rosengrant@temple.edu.

Fall reflection: recalling how they fared

Just like that, the fall athletics season has come and gone.

While the hot weather turned to cold and leaves began falling off trees, seven sets of Temple teams were in season. And while there were some disappointments and tough losses along the way, on the whole, it was a rather memorable and noteworthy campaign.

Football
People were saying “Mid-American Conference Championship” and “bowl game.” They were excited. There was anticipation. For Temple football.

But, three heartbreaking losses later, the Owls went 5-7 overall and 4-4 in the MAC, a one-game improvement on last season. The five wins were the program’s most since 1990, though.

The season was perhaps defined in the loss to Buffalo on Sept. 13, where seconds after redshirt senior quarterback Adam DiMichele hit senior wide receiver Bruce Francis for a late, go-ahead score, the Owls failed to cover a last-second Hail Mary attempt from the Bulls and lost the game, 30-28.

A frustrated coach Al Golden summed things up after the game.

“We didn’t do our job,” he said. “We didn’t box out like we’re supposed to. We didn’t have a jumper in position. We work on it all the time. We didn’t do our job. They finished the game. We didn’t.”

The week before, the Owls lost in overtime to Connecticut. One week after Buffalo, they lost DiMichele for a month to a shoulder injury. A week after that they lost to Western Michigan 7-3.

Nov. 1 against Navy, the Owls blew a 20-point fourth quarter lead and lost in overtime.

Despite all the frustrations and excuses to quit, Temple finished the season strong and went out as winners.

Volleyball
What began as a promising year quickly faltered into an early round playoff exit.

The Owls finished 15-15 overall and 6-7 in Atlantic Ten Conference play, with their season coming to a close Nov. 21 against Xavier.

Longtime coach Bob Bertucci’s squad finished third in the A-10 East, but it couldn’t get past the top teams in the conference, going 1-7 against the teams that made the A-10 Championship.

Three of those losses came in 3-2 games, which normally accounts for not getting the job done late in matches.

And that’s something Bertucci noticed back in October.

“When it’s early in the match, we’re loose. There is no pressure, and we’re fine,” he said. “As the opponent starts to step up and starts to adjust to what we’re doing and, therefore, put pressure on us, we tighten up.”

But, the Owls have just one senior on their roster, as the young squad hopes to build for next season.

Men’s Soccer
Talk about coming out of nowhere.

The Owls, led by seven goals and 12 assists from junior forward J.T. Noone, advanced all the way to the A-10 semifinals.

A 2-1 overtime loss to Dayton ended their season, but finishing at 10-5-4 overall and 6-1-2 in conference was a marked improvement over past seasons.

And while the season was certainly a success, coach David MacWilliams knows the job still has some unfinished business.

“I’m happy with the efforts but not happy with the end result,” he said after the loss to Dayton on Nov. 14. “We wanted to and believed we could make the NCAA Tournament this year. It was a great accomplishment, but we tried to set the bar and standards higher.”

The good thing for the Owls is the squad has just two seniors, so the proverbial bar will be set even higher once the 2009 season gets underway.

Women’s Soccer
The Owls had a rough couple of months, finishing 4-11-4 overall and 2-6-3 in conference.
On the positive side, they found a legitimate scorer in freshman Niki Conn. In 18 games, the forward/midfielder tallied four goals and an assist.

The Owls also have a pair of up-and-coming goalies to block up the net, as sophomore Kara Williams and freshman Courtney Douglas looked solid in a majority of games.

The Cherry and White also played well on Senior Day, beating George Washington 2-1.

“We’re a young team,” Jones said. “Even though we had a few seniors this year, we relied on freshmen and sophomores a lot. Plus, the competition within the A-10 is hard.”

Field Hockey
It was a rollercoaster ride for one of the A-10’s top teams in the past half-decade.

Coach Amanda Janney led the Owls to an 8-12 record, but the numbers are deceiving. They played a deep non-conference schedule that included Boston, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State. Scrapping their way into the postseason, the Owls dropped a fifth straight A-10 semifinals game at home to Richmond.

The 4-3 loss came on a controversial overtime goal.

And while the Owls lose defensive anchors Mary Catherine Kinneman and goalkeeper Erin Hanshue, the offense should be locked in for 2009.

“We’ve come a long way this season,” Janney said. “We’ve gotten better every game, which makes us happy as a coaching staff that they have really improved.”

Men’s and Women’s Tennis
Both sets of the Owls finished their fall campaigns with plenty of memorable moments.

In early September, the men took home the inaugural Philadelphia City 6 Tournament behind the rackets of freshman Filip Rams and junior Nathan Spunda. The duo met in the finals of the singles competition, with Rams winning two sets to one. In the Intercollegiate Tennis Association championships, their final event, the men put together a solid 4-2 record.

The women, last spring’s A-10 champions, also made headlines in September.

At the Cornell Invitational, junior Anastasiia Rukavyshnykova won the Flight B singles championship, while her teammate, sophomore Theresa Stangl, won Flight C.

“It was a great effort by the team,” men’s and women’s coach Steve Mauro said. “I’m very happy the way they responded in the first tournament of the year.”

Todd Orodenker and Anthony Stipa can be reached at sports@temple-news.com.

Both singles and doubles lose key matches

The first scheduled match of the women’s tennis season is Jan. 28, but that doesn’t mean tennis isn’t being played already.

The women’s tennis team participated in the ITA Regionals, which took place in Philadelphia last weekend.

The singles and doubles participants each lost tough matches in the tournament.

“It was a very tough draw. We played the better teams,” said coach Steve Mauro, who is in his first year in charge of the Owls. “The tournament is very tricky. You don’t know who you are going to play first. Sometimes you can get a tough draw, sometimes not. It could have gone either way.”

Junior Elyse Steiner was the singles representative for the Owls. Normally, Steiner plays doubles, but she wasn’t feeling well, Mauro said, so she represented the team playing singles.

Steiner’s health played a factor in the tournament, as she lost in the first round in three sets versus an opponent from Harvard.

“She didn’t have enough energy to perform at her highest level,” Mauro said. “Unfortunately, she lost to one of Harvard’s top players.”

The doubles team, which was comprised of senior Dina Senkina and sophomore Lucie Pazderova, didn’t have great success either.

The duo took on a doubles team from Princeton and lost in a close match, 8-6. Once again, coach Mauro said the team lost a close, hard-fought match.

With the ITA Regionals behind them and another tournament in the near future, the Cherry and White are looking forward to the upcoming season, as they will try to build off last year’s success.

In 2008, the Owls won the Atlantic Ten Conference Championship and gained a berth in the NCAA Tournament, only to lose to Duke in the first round.

With the success of last season still lingering, the team will look within to maintain the success of last season.

Not only does the team have a new coach, but it will be losing Senkina, its top player, at the end of this semester to graduation. Senkina is the reigning A-10 Women’s Tennis Player of the Year.

Even though the team is losing such a high talent, Mauro still has high expectations.

“[The team is] pretty strong one through eight, and all the girls really push one another,” Mauro said. “I’m really happy with the way they perform and practice.”

Looking ahead to the season, Mauro believes Richmond will be one of the toughest opponents in the quest for a repeat championship.

“Richmond had a good recruiting year, so I expect them to be a tough opponent,” he said. “But you never know until you get there.”

Along with Richmond, coach Mauro believes the Ivy League schools will be difficult opponents as well.
“I look forward to all the tough teams,” he said. “I think we’re going to have a very successful season.”

Nick Hollenstein can be reached at n.hoolenstein@temple.edu.

New coaches top summer moves

The start of the 2008-09 academic year brings fresh faces to Temple – and they aren’t just freshmen.

Temple athletics will welcome four new coaches this fall, two of them in sports that made it to the NCAA
Tournament just last year. Such new beginnings for the Owls aren’t strictly limited to North Philadelphia. Two alumni joined the professional ranks in sports this summer.

Here’s a recap of the summer sports news:
Women’s Basketball
After spending eight seasons at Temple and amassing a record of 172-80, including six NCAA Tournament
appearances and four Atlantic Ten titles, coach Dawn Staley left the Owls for the University of South Carolina. She was replaced by Tonya Cardoza, a former teammate of Staley’s at the University of Virginia and a 14-year assistant to hall of fame coach Geno Auriemma at the University of Connecticut. Cardoza, a guard specialist, brings championship experience with her to North Broad Street, as she helped the Huskies win five NCAA titles and 464 games during her time in Storrs, Conn. Dan Durkin, Waynetta Veney and Brittany Hunter have joined her staff as assistants.
Men’s Basketball
After helping the Owls reach their first NCAA Tournament since 2001, guard Mark Tyndale joined the Adelaide 36ers of the Australian National Basketball League in August. Tyndale, a Philadelphia native, averaged 15.9 points last season and led the Owls in rebounding (7.2) and assists (4.3) per game. He finished his career at Temple ranked in the school’s top 20 in scoring and rebounding and the top 10 in assists and steals.
The man who was at the helm of that NCAA Tournament appearance, coach Fran Dunphy, signed a contract
extension through the 2013-14 season. Dunphy, who holds a career record of 343-194, will also take his squad to the inaugural Charleston Classic in November. In addition, Temple has announced it will play two games against city rivals La Salle and Saint Joseph’s, as well as Rhode Island.
Baseball
After the Owls were eliminated from the Atlantic Ten Conference Championship in late May, left-handed pitcher Mike Mongiardini signed a professional contract in July with the Kalamazoo Kings of the Frontier League, an independent professional baseball league based in the Midwest. He made his pitching debut the next day, throwing five scoreless, hitless innings in the team’s 7-5 win. During his senior season at Temple, Mongiardini went 3-2 with a 4.08 ERA in 11 starts, leading the Owls in strikeouts with 43 in 57.1innings. Mongiardini also led the baseball program to its first postseason victory in five years when he pitched 7.2 innings and allowed only one earned run against St. Bonaventure in the A-10 Tournament.
More than one month later, Mongiardini’s Kalamazoo Kings’ teammate, Brandon Anderson, joined the Temple Owls baseball team as an assistant. Anderson, who has played with the Kings for two seasons, rejoins Temple coach Rob Valli. Anderson played under Valli for two seasons at Gloucester County College in New Jersey.
Softball
Temple headed north up Broad Street to find a replacement following the resignation of three-year coach Casey Dickson. Joe DiPietro, who spent six seasons as La Salle University’s softball coach, takes over for the Owls, who finished the season 15-24, with a record of 5-15 in the A-10.

Women’s Tennis
First-year coach Jill Breslin resigned, opting to take the same position at Bryn Mawr College instead of defending Temple’s A-10 Championship. Breslin, the A-10 Coach of the Year in her first season at the helm, helped the Owls reach the NCAA Tournament for only the second time in the program’s history. A successor has yet to be named.

Track and Field
The Owls hired former assistant Eric Mobley as the teams’ coach after Stefanie Scalessa stepped down from her position. Mobley, who was at Temple from 2002-04, spent the last four years as coach at the College of New Jersey. He will replace Scalessa, who became the first woman to coach a men’s sport at Temple and helped revive the cross country program after 20 years of dormancy in 2005.

Jennifer Reardon can be reached at
jennifer.reardon@temple.edu.

The host Blue Devils downed the A-10 champs, 4-0, Friday.

The score didn’t do the Owls any justice. The home crowd wasn’t very supportive either.

The women’s tennis team was ousted from the NCAA tournament after losing to No. 9 Duke, 4-0, in the first round in Durham, N.C. Friday.

Despite the loss, the young Owls (16-5), gained some precious experience against the Blue Devils (19-4).

“We haven’t had that exposure, that experience needed to really compete at that type of level,” assistant coach Darrin Cohen said. “It’s a great stepping stone, building block.”

Boasting two of the country’s top individual players, the Blue Devils took care of business early.

In singles matches, the Owls were swept in straight sets. Sophomores Christine Clermont and Anastasiia Rukavyshnykova were each defeated 6-1, 6-1.

Junior Dina Senkina was down 6-1, 5-1 but did not finish before the overall match ended.

It was déjà vu in doubles action as the Owls duo of Rukavyshnykova and Clermont was beaten, 8-2.

Freshmen doubles pair Lucie Pazderova and Theresa Stangl were grounded 8-0 against the Blue Devils’ tandem of Ellah Nze and Reka Zsilinszka. Nze is the 21st-ranked player nationally, while Zsilinszka is the 24th.

Senkina and sophomore Elyse Steiner were locked in a 4-4 stalemate, but it was too late, as the overall outcome was already decided.
Despite these shortcomings at Durham, it was a season of promise and improvement for the Owls.

The team, which is comprised of mostly freshmen and sophomores, took home the Owls’ first Atlantic Ten Conference Championship since 2002-2003.
All nine players will be returning to defend that title next season.

“We fought hard as a team, but Duke was just too tough an opponent,” said first-year Temple coach Jill Breslin. “It was an outstanding season, and with our entire
team back, we look forward to even more success next year.”

Anthony Stipa can be reached at anthony.stipa@temple.edu.

Senkina, Frazier provide leadership for A-10 victory

This past Sunday, the women’s tennis team served, hit and volleyed their way to a 4-0 win over Xavier in the finals of the Atlantic Ten Conference Women’s Championship to capture their fourth A-10 crown in program history.

As Temple wrapped up its first conference tournament title since 2003, juniors Dina Senkina and Felicia Frazier were there to support the second-seeded Owls (16-4) — not just with their talent, but also with seasoned advice and guidance.

On a team with no seniors and a first-year coach, Senkina and Frazier have assumed roles of leadership, helping the other seven members of the team to improve their skills on the court.

“This has been a year of transition,” coach Jill Breslin said. “But it’s been a smooth transition, mostly because of Dina and Felicia.”
Senkina, originally from Moscow, Russia, transferred to Temple as a sophomore after spending a year at Liberty University, a fundamentalist Baptist school in Lynchburg, Va.

“I wanted a bigger city and bigger tennis,” she said.

Bigger tennis she got.

Senkina is the Owls’ No. 1 singles player and half of the No. 2 doubles team with sophomore Elyse Steiner. She attained an 11-5 singles record (8-2 in doubles) and won 14 straight matches earlier in the season. She was named the A-10 Player of the Week on Feb. 16.
During last weekend’s A-10 Championship, which was held Monroeville, Pa., Senkina won all four of the matches she finished, leading the team to victory.

“We can always trust [Senkina] to go out there and give 110 percent in every game, whether she’s playing singles, doubles, whatever,” Breslin said.

Frazier, too, is a vital player.

She hails from Riverdale, Ga., and was recruited to the Owls by the team’s last coach, Traci Green. Occupying the No. 6 singles slot, she finished the 2007-08 regular season with a successful 9-2 record, winning seven of her last eight matches.

“Felicia has the biggest heart,” Breslin said. “She’s full of passion. We’ll be down 5-2, and she’ll decide to win the game back and spend the rest of the time chasing balls up and down the court. She’s got so much grit and intensity, it’s amazing to watch.”
As Frazier sees it, having the right attitude is key.

“I just try to keep myself pumped up the entire time while I’m on the court. I try to stay positive and focused,” she said.
Perhaps because the team is so young — aside from Senkina and Frazier, the Owls’ roster boasts three sophomores and four freshmen — the players have gotten close.

They all live in apartments at The Edge at Avenue North and spend time together outside of practices and matches.
“Everyone gets along really well,” Senkina said. “We’ve become very good friends.”

In addition to being cohesive, the team also shares responsibilities.

“We’re the leaders,” Frazier said. “But everyone plays their own role and everyone carries weight. We all try to help and support each other.”

This kind of esprit de corps helped the Owls earn their automatic berth to the NCAA Championship this past weekend.

Breslin said she hopes the team remains strong until May 9, when the first round of the tournament begins. She also hopes that Senkina and Frazier continue to influence and inspire the younger players with their spirit and determination, just as they did all season.

“They’ve gotten the girls to really step it up,” Breslin said. “Everyone’s thinking about trying to fill their shoes [when they leave].”

Anna Hyclak can be reached at anna.hyclak@temple.edu.

Momentum slowed by few April matches

In January, the women’s tennis team opened their regular season with a pair of losses to Penn and Princeton. A week later, the Owls (12-4) picked up a 7-0 win against Binghamton.

That victory initiated a winning streak that lasted 11 matches through to the end of March. The run was blown at the end of the month with a loss at Penn State.

April has not been as kind to the Owls. They began the month with a 4-5 loss to Atlantic Ten Conference rival Massachusetts. And their game against George Washington the next day was cancelled.

The A-10 Championship begins Friday and the Owls have only played two matches this month.

The Owls finished second in the A-10 last year, losing 4-0 to Richmond in the championship match. The Owls, who finished 2007 with a 16-4 record, were the top seeded team in the tournament.

This year, the team was slated to finish third in a field of 14 according to the conference’s preseason coaches poll. Richmond was picked to finish first, with Charlotte right behind. The Owls beat Richmond, 4-3, earlier this season.

The Owls’ roster is nine-deep, with four freshmen, three sophomores and two juniors. More than half of the team has experience playing in last year’s A-10 tournament matches.

Junior Dina Senkina was named the OwlSports.com Athlete of the Month in February. She was also named the A-10 Player of the Week on Feb. 16.

She won 14 consecutive matches and led her team to victory against Richmond in February. Her play also helped the Owls to string the 11-game winning streak.

Senkina played in the A-10 Championship last season and will look to help her team play in and win that match this year.

The tournament starts Friday at the Club 4 Life in Monroeville, Pa. The championship matches will take place on Sunday.

Melissa DiPento can be reached at mdipento@temple.edu.