The top-ranked men's gymnastics team suffered its first loss of the season Friday night at Ohio State as the Buckeyes beat the Lions, 281.0-279.15. Despite the loss, the Lions should maintain their No. 1 ranking.

"The only disappointment about this meet was that we didn't have a higher hit ratio," Coach Karl Schier said. "Neither team really performed to the best of their abilities."

Two bright spots of the meet were the performances of Adam Carton and Jamie Downer in the all-around. Carton scored 56.70 to capture first place and Downer scored 55.70 to take third. Freshman Kip Simons (55.75) of Ohio State was second.

Carton placed second on the floor (9.65) and third on the vault (9.35) and parallel bars (9.40). Downer placed first on the high bar with a 9.65.

Carton, ranked sixth in the nation in the all-around, helped himself in the all-around rankings by scoring 2.3 points better than Ohio State's Rusty Schillinger (55.40), who was ranked second in the nation.

"Carton did a great job and his score shows it, plus Jamie had one of his best performances of the year," Schier said. "Of course what hurt us was the amount of breaks and our pommel horse was a little disappointing."

The horse is one of the team's strongest events and was led once again by Mark Sohn. Sohn, who hasn't broken a set all year, scored a 9.90 but Mike Masucci, Wayne Cowden and Downer all had major breaks and the team lost the event for the first time this season.

"I don't know what happened out there (on the horse)," Cowden said. "Mike and I had a pretty weak meet and a lot of guys looked tired, and everyone has been working harder in practice and it may have caught up to us."

Despite Cowden's self-criticism, he maintained his top quality on the still rings, scoring a 9.75 and taking first place. Teammate Rich Briggs placed second with a 9.70. The rings and the high bar, where Ohio State broke three times, were the only team events the Lions captured.

"We didn't put in one of our best meets, but it's nice to know that we can boost what is a fairly high score," assistant coach Randy Jepson said. "Consistency is the key and we keep pushing that to the guys."

The Lions did use a 10-man lineup for this meet, but Schier said with the return of freshman Tabor Cowden next week that the team is close to getting its maximum scoring nine-man team.

Cowden's fellow freshmen, Armando Gonzalez and Dave Riordan, continued to post solid scores. Riordan scored a 9.1 on the vault and Gonzalez had his best meet to date witha 9.25 on the pommel horse and a 9.15 on the floor. Schier said he was glad to see the two freshmen rise to the occasion and handle the pressure.

"It is always tough to perform on the road, and I think we were a little tight," Schier said. "But we were within two points of them on their home floor, and I thought being around four or five points wouldn't have been that bad."