For the first time this season, no one excelled for the men's gymnastics team.

Everyone did.

Although they lost to No. 2 Ohio State 279.15-277.90 Saturday night, the seventh-ranked Lions pulled their resources together to push last week's season-high score up two full points.

The Lions (4-2) got off to a shaky start on floor exercise, where they could only manage as high as a sixth-place finish. But the team rebounded on pommel horse, where the scores ranged from a 9.0 to a 9.9.

After that event, the Lions took the lead, but only by .05.

"It would have been nice to have gotten off to a little bit better start," Coach Karl Schier said. "But actually, I thought we were darn close to a team that's supposed to be a a little bit better than us. With the young team we've got and only halfway, through the season, coming this close, I'm very proud of all of them."

Mark Sohn again highlighted the night, scoring his second 9.9 in as many meets. Also for the second time, one of the four judges awarded him a perfect 10. For his efforts, Sohn won the Gene Wettstone Award.

Schier explained that Sohn elected to do a B dismount this week. Each trick is assessed according to its difficulty, D being the most difficult. The majority of Sohn's routine consists of D moves and last week he did a C dismount.

"I would say since he chose to do the straddle dismount, that leaves the judges' door open to say that it isn't a C dismount and that may have been the deduction," Schier said. "It looked very good to me. I did not see any breaks. I only see it from one angle, though. Someone else may have seen it differently."

Sohn said he never goes out expecting a 10, but added that he did not know exactly where he lost the one-tenth.

"I thought it was the best routine I've ever done," he said. "What kind of upsets me about not getting the 10 is the fact that our team did extremely well tonight."

Ohio State's Mike Racanelli won the all-around with a 56.05. Racanelli, the leading candidate for the Nissen Award (presented to the gymnast who excels both athletically and academically) was followed closely by Mike Masucci (55.85) and Wayne Cowden (55.80).

Racanelli nabbed first on both parallel bars with a 9.5 and floor exercise with a 9.7. He also tied Masucci for second place honors on rings (9.55).

Masucci also managed a second place finish on pommel horse (9.6) behind Sohn's 9.9.

Cowden took first on rings (9.65), second on horizontal bar (9.5) and third on pommel horse (9.5).

"For a sophomore and a freshman, Cowden and Masucci are quite a tandem," Schier said. "They're really doing the job for us. They've been steady-eddies all season long and that's just amazing for a sophomore and freshman."

Jim Delaney finally came into his own against the Buckeyes. Delaney turned in six solid performances, ranging from an 8.85 on rings to a 9.4 on pommel horse. Throughout the season, the he has been plagued by an ankle injury, but he said that Ohio State was the time to put that behind him.

"This is probably our biggest meet until regionals and NCAAs," he said. "A lot of training in the gym this past week really paid off. Plus, my parents are up for the weekend."

Sohn said that he, too, was impressed with Delaney's performance and added that he felt the freshman performed like a junior.

Senior Karl Abraham and junior Jamie Downer also pulled through for the Lions. Abraham finished second on horizontal bar with a 9.5 and did not score below an 8.95. Downer came back from boggling his first tumbling pass on floor exercise to finish the next five events at 9.05 or better.

"It's about time I had a solid meet," Abraham said. "I wanted to get out there and bust it out. I think this was the most aggressive I've been. I was angry, so I didn't know how it would turn out. I just wanted to beat them so bad."

While the Lions did turn in the best team hit this year, in their eyes there is still room for improvement. Delaney pointed out that the team still counted a few broken routines in their score while Sohn added that the parallel performance is still not up to par.

Although the Lions were disappointed with Saturday's loss, they will get another shot at the Buckeyes on April 7 when Ohio State competes at Rec Hall as part of the NCAA Eastern Regional competition.

"I think we can nail them," Sohn said. "We're such a young team, and they did extremely well tonight. I don't think they can go much higher. We can.

"I think they realized that they have a lot of work to do to be able to consistently beat us by the end of the season. They saw what we did tonight on our floor. So they're going to have to watch out for us come regionals."