After two slow weeks on the road, the No. 2 men's gymnastics team returned home to put together its best meet of the year in a 281.85-275.55 win over Iowa on Saturday night.

The strong performance of the Lions was marred by a frightening moment when Iowa's Dillon Ashton fell on his neck while performing on the floor exercise. The crowd watched silently as Ashton lay on the floor motionless for nearly three minutes. After finally moving his legs, a stretcher with a neck brace was brought out and Ashton was taken to Centre Community Hospital where X-rays proved negative.

"That was a scary moment," Iowa coach Tom Dunn said. "It was pretty devastating to us because when there is a possibility of a severe injury nothing seems so important anymore."

"I know when Ashton fell, that it really took the wind out of their sails," assistant coach Randy Jepson said.

Jepson said he was really pleased with the team's performance and that it is heading in the right direction. Adam Carton turned in the best all-around performance of the night to win the Gene Wettstone award. Carton scored a 56.85, which included a new vault that scored a 9.55 to take first in the event.

"Adam did a spectacular job tonight," Jepson said. "His new vault (a front half somersault on to the horse and a handspring off) seemed to impress the judges. He just did an excellent job."

The vault has been one of the team's weakest events, but the new vault added strength to the scoring. Tabor Cowden, making his return from a thumb injury, performed the new move along with Jamie Downer and Carton. Cowden surprised the crowd with the vault, but he missed on the handspring dismount and scored a 9.2 which received boos from the crowd.

"The score was fair," Cowden said. "Basically tonight all I wanted to do was land on my feet. I think my vault helped Jamie and Adam out with their scoring and that was good."

Brad Rocklein had his first high bar performance of the year and hit the routine to score a 9.35, drawing a couple of fist pumps and big smiles from the junior.

"It was so fantastic, I just couldn't have dreamt it better," Rocklein said. "I wanted to stick the dismount and when I did that, it was the icing on the cake."

Rocklein had quit the team his freshman year to concentrate on his engineering classes. He came back at the beginning of this year and worked hard on his routine and earned a spot in the lineup this week.

"Brad was outstanding, he has really only been in one other competition," Jepson said. "To see him come through and hit his routine is a credit to him."

Strong performances were again turned in by Mark Sohn on pommel horse and Wayne Cowden on rings. Sohn scored a 9.90 and Cowden a 9.75 to capture first in each event. Team captain Jamie Downer also captured a first place on the floor exercise with a 9.60. Downer scored 56.40 to finish third in the all-around. Mike Masucci finished second with a 56.65.

"I figure if we hit our routines, we could beat them by about three points," Masucci said. "We did pretty well on everything but parallel bars and we need to work on some little changes."

"We were expecting a dog fight, and I'm real pleased with what we did tonight," Jepson said. "Considering how we've tried to upgrade our routines for the NCAAs, and with the new moves added, it was nice to see us do so well."