Suffering its third loss of the season, the women's gymnastics team fell to rival Ohio State Friday, 184.55-179.75.

Since 1983, the Lady Lions and the Lady Buckeyes have alternated in and out of the number one slot in the NCAA Northeast Region. The rivalry between the two teams dates to 1965 and is one of the oldest in the Penn State program.

"Ohio State is always hard to beat at Ohio State," Coach Judi Avener said at the beginning of the season.

The Lady Lions have now lost six straight meets in Columbus, dating back to 1977. Penn State presently holds a record of 6-3, Ohio State is 8-2.

"We just didn't perform well this weekend," Assistant Coach Breck Greenwood said.

Competing without two key performers, senior Kathy Parody and sophomore Lynn Crane, put the Lady Lions at a disadvantage.

"Our weakness is certainly our (lack of) depth," Greenwood continued. "On two of the events we only competed five people and five scores count for each event. Everytime we had a little error, we had to count that in our team score instead of throwing it out."

Freshman Kim Thrasher won the all-around with a 37.70. Ohio State's Julie Sommers took second with 37.45. Thrasher was the top-scorer for Penn State in all four events, taking first place on beam, second on both vault and floor and fourth on uneven bars.

"Kim Thrasher did great in the all-around," Greenwood said. "She performed really well and she was the bright spot in the loss."

Greenwood will stress the importance of increasing skill and confidence in the beam competition during practice this week.

"We looked nervous so we are going to have to do more numbers this week. We've been working more on individual tricks and finesse but now we are going to have to work more on increasing our number of skills so that we have a little more confidence for the next meet," Greenwood said.

The Lady Lions will next host the Lady Panthers from Pittsburgh on Friday in Rec Hall.

"I hope that we perform better," said Greenwood. "We are going to work on having a real aggressive week of work-out and get ready to put on a good show for the home crowd."