When the women's gymnastics team was losing its battle against Pitt Saturday night, the Lady Lions depended on their strongest event, the vault, to bring them a 178.65-175.80 win.

"They (Pitt) were very competitive," Coach Judi Avener said. "One time we were losing the meet, and vaulting put us back. We had some real first-meet jitters."

"It was close at times, but at the end, we came through," freshman Susan Docherty agreed.

Although the team had some problems with breaks on several of its events, it swept first place in all four events and the all-around. Penn State did not depend on its strongest lineup in its first meet and featured its younger members.

"I tried to use the freshmen and younger kids as much as possible," Avener said. "We did enough to win. We came out healthy. We did just what we wanted to do."

The Lady Lions swept the vault. Lisa Mallios proved she could get back into the competition fast after a year's break from the team. She won the event and equaled her own Penn State record of 9.7, set two years ago.

"It's great to have Lisa back," Avener said. "She brought tears to my eyes."

Another newcomer, freshman Allison Barber, followed right behind Mallios with a 9.45. Sophomore Kim Thrasher, who tied Mallios' vault record last season, placed third with a 9.4.

"The vault was our best event," Thrasher said. "I didn't do the hardest vault that I'm working on. We watered that down."

In this meet, Thrasher's top event was the floor exercise, which she won with a 9.3. She also won the all-around with a score of 35.85. But it was a bitter-sweet victory for her. Thrasher said she definitely did not have her best performance.

"I didn't have as good a meet as compared to last year," Thrasher said.

Some of the lows came in the other two events, the balance beam and uneven parallel bars. On uneven bars, the Lady Lions suffered three breaks, one in 1989 NCAA Regional bar champ Kira Rohm's routine.

"I was just kind of hesitant," Rohm said. "I held back a little bit when I shouldn't have."

The balance beam caused the greatest havoc for the Lady Lions with eight falls in the seven routines. Avener thinks the difficulties on the two events were just a matter of first-meet jitters.

However Barber, pulled through on the beam, not only with no breaks, but topped the event with a 9.4 score.

"Vault is probably my best event," Barber said. "When I hit on beam, I usually do pretty well. I was a little less nervous. That had to do with the amount of people there. The atmosphere wasn't as tense. I just concentrated on what I had to do."

Since Avener gave the freshmen and returning gymnasts a chance to gain some experience, top all-arounder Lynn Crane did not compete in the all-around.

However, she managed to win the uneven bars (9.2). Last year in the meet against Pitt, Crane broke the school record on the event with a score of 9.75.