When the men's gymnastics team opens its season tomorrow at Syracuse, it will be without the services of two key performers, specialist Rich Briggs and all-arounder Jim Delaney.

Briggs, who competes on the rings, will miss the meet with a shoulder injury. The injury is not considered to be serious and is expected to be back once the shoulder is rested.

Delaney accidently sliced the middle and index fingers on his right hand with a knife while washing dishes Jan. 5. The sophomore severed tendons and suffered possible nerve damage and he is expected to miss the rest of the season.

"Losing Jim will hurt us, especially his experience," Mike Reichenbach said. "But we have a deep team and Tabor (Cowden) and Armando (Gonzalez) will fit well in the line up."

Cowden and Gonzalez, both freshmen, will compete in Delaney's events in the dual meet competitions. Both performed well at the preseason meet at Farmingdale on Jan. 8-9.

"The freshmen did fairly well for their first time out, and Cowden and Gonzalez are very talented gymnasts," assistant coach Randy Jepson said. "It's exciting to watch them with big eyes and see that they can fit in and do the job."

Coach Karl Schier said that besides Delaney's loss and Briggs shoulder problem, the team is in good shape heading into the Syracuse meet. Most minor injuries have been worked out and Mike Massuci, who did not compete at Farmingdale will be ready for Syracuse.

"Syracuse is more formidable than they have been in past years and they will be competing on their home floor, but I would like to think that we can handle them," Schier said.

The Lions (271.30) beat Syracuse by eight points at Farmingdale in capturing the team title. Schier said that the 271 is not the normal type of score he expects, but because it was preseason and Masucci and Delaney were out, he was satisfied with the effort.

Mark Sohn began his quest for a record fourth NCAA pommel horse title on the right foot scoring a perfect 10 in the preliminaries of the event and won the title with a 9.975.

"That is the first time I've started off with a 10," Sohn said. "I'm in the best shape I've ever been in for the beginning of a season."

Reichenbach also turned in a strong performance at Farmingdale by making the finals in five events. He placed first in the parallel bars, second on the rings and floor exercise, third on the parallel bars and fourth on the vault.

"I had kind of a rough season last year and I'm really confident about this season," Reichenbach said. "I've trained hard and I'm really excited to be competing again."

Reichenbach will be joined in the all-around at Syracuse by Wayne Cowden, Adam Carton, Jamie Downer and Masucci. Carton (54.40) placed second in the all-around to Syracuse's Chris Kirby (55.35) at Farmingdale and Cowden placed fourth. Cowden also won the rings, where he's the defending NCAA champion.

Joining Sohn as a specialist at Syracuse will be Jacob Wan on the high bar. Wan placed second at Farmingdale with a 9.00 average.

"Right now Syracuse doesn't have the team depth that we do to be challenging to us," Jepson said. "They are really upgrading their program though and it's nice to see another eastern team developing their program."