Jamie Downer knew the men's gymnastics team did something special yesterday when Coach Karl Schier told him he had practice off today.

"No practice?" the junior asked skeptically. "I can't believe that you said that."

The Lions earned their reprieve by posting a season-high score and proving themselves among the nation's best by beating Illinois-Chicago, 282.20-274.10, yesterday afternoon.

"It was terrific. It was one of the best meets that I've seen from a Penn State team and the fact that we did 36 sets, and only one, one vault was what you'd call a major break," Schier said. "I haven't had hardly a team ever hit only one major break," Schier said. "I haven't had hardly a team ever hit only one major break in the entire meet -- that's . . . that's almost absurd."

As one of the highest scores in the country, it shows that the young team is coming together and also establishes the Lions well a month before the NCAA East Regionals.

Freshman Mike Masucci had a season best of 56.50 to win the all-around with a high of 9.6 on the vault. He incorporated a new release move into his high bar routine for a 9.5 and stuck his vault for the first time this season for a 9.55.

Downer took second in the all-around with a season-best score of 55.75 and won the Gene Wettstone Award in the process. He had a meet high in the floor exercises with a 9.5, and scored 9.4 in both the vault and pommel horse.

Sophomore Wayne Cowden was disappointed with his third-place finish in the all-around with a 55.65. He started off the meet well, including a 9.7 on rings, the second highest individual score of the meet. However, Cowden greatly decreased his chance at winning the all-around when he fell on the landing of his vault for a 8.5.

"I got a little too high on the horse, and I couldn't push off the horse, so I hit my face pretty hard," he explained.

Illinois-Chicago's Dave Helmach was fourth in the all-around with 55.25.

Senior Karl Abraham's last regular season meet at Rec Hall was fruitful as he scored at least a 9.0 in all his events. His high score was a 9.5 on the vault.

"It's the 9.6 vault, that's what it's called. It's very hard nowadays to get a vault worth a 9.6. The last home meet I had blown it here trying the same vault. It came off this time and I was really pleased about it," Abraham said.

Sophomore Mike Reichenbach and freshman Jim Delaney also heavily contributed to the team's high score. Reichenbach had a 9.5 on the rings and Delaney used a one arm giant swing to help him get a 9.45.

Pommel horse specialist Mark Sohn was hoping for some competition from Illinois-Chicago's Jeff Ashton, who is also a specialist in this event. But Ashton fell off the horse for 9.0, which didn't even mildly challenge Sohn's highest individual score of the meet, a 9.9. The pommel horse was good to all Penn State competitors, and gave them the highest score in any of the events with a 47.80.

Schier was pleased with not just the pommel horse, but all the events. Even the parallel bars and high bars, which are normally weaker events for the team, brought in high scores.

"We trained pretty hard. We're getting down to the routines we want to use now and things are settling in. It's a young team -- it takes this long to usually hit this well. But to hit this well, that's really a new thing."