It was fitting, really, what happened Saturday afternoon during the men's gymnastics meet.

After spending the entire season muddled below the 282 mark, the fifth-ranked Lions (12-3) came into this weekend's showdown with No. 4 Brigham Young knowing they were better than the numbers they had been scoring.

As far as they were concerned, all the pieces of the puzzle were on the table. All Penn State needed to leap the final hurdle into the realm of the "elite" -- those teams scoring over 283 -- was for those pieces to finally slide into place.

And what could be more a more appropriate setting than the team's last dual meet of the season and the final home appearance for four Penn State seniors?

It didn't matter that the No. 2 all-arounder in the nation, Jing-wei Liang, a freshman who is also a member of the Chinese National Team, scored a 57.8, the second-best all-around score performed on the Rec Hall floor this season.

It also didn't matter that the Cougars were ranked higher coming into the match and were expected to handle the Lions easily.

Penn State notched season-best scores on pommel horse and horizontal bar and turned in its best overall score of the season to knock off the Cougars, 283.5-281.65, in its last tune-up before heading into the Big Ten championships this weekend.

"I was pleased with the improvements we've made," Coach Randy Jepson said. "The things we've been concentrating on in practice -- the stuck landings, improvements on high bar -- are beginning to show and that's a really good sign at this point of the season. It shows we're really headed in the right direction and the guys are responding."

Penn State's Adam Carton, ranked sixth in the nation in the all-around and one of the seniors competing in his last home meet, turned in a nearly flawless performance and scored a 57.2 in taking second place in the all-around. Ninth-ranked Mike Masucci finished third with a 56.85 and senior Mike Reichenbach took sixth with a 54.7.

Liang's 57.8 was good enough to pick up the all-around title and win the Gene Wettstone Award as the meet's top performer. Eighth-ranked Jason Brown finished fourth with a 56.7 and Ritchie Ellis scored a 54.95 to take fifth.

"As a team, we drastically cut down on the number of breaks and we really put it together," Reichenbach said. "It's nice to have a senior meet where the team comes together so well. We finally have our consistency, which is the one thing we've been trying to get hold of all season. We've been having breaks, multiple breaks, throughout the whole season and now we've finally brought it together and really minimized them."

The Lions opened the meet solidly, scoring a 47.25 on the floor exercise and continuing to improve its scores on that event. Carton picked up a career- and team-best 9.85 to outdistance Liang and Brown, who both scored 9.75s, and pick up the victory.

After getting out to the early lead, the Lions began working on stretching that lead. They scored a season-best 47.25 on the pommel horse and a 48.55 on the rings.

Wayne Cowden, ranked fourth nationally on rings, scored a 9.85 to win the event. No. 2 Reichenbach turned in an almost perfect routine that received a 9.8 and second place from the judges, a score that brought the Penn State fans to their feet to protest their dissatisfaction with the judges' stinginess. No. 3 Carton and No. 12 Briggs both scored 9.65s to tie for fourth place.

"The meet went very well, and the things we've been concentrating on in practice are starting to work out," Carton said. "We had our first real good high bar score this year, which we really needed, and at the same time we didn't screw anything else up."

The Cougars kept scratching to remain in the match, but the Lions kept up the pressure and BYU was able to win only the vault. Both teams scored a 46.6 on the parallel bars and headed into the final meet of the night, the horizontal bars, with the Lions ahead, 236.1-234.65.

Normally the Lions' toughest event, the horizontal bar would not damage Penn State's hopes for a victory Saturday. After Reichenbach led off and missed the bar on a release move, freshman Mark Cooper followed with a career-best 9.65 to rejuvenate the Lions and lead them to a season-best 47.4.

The high bar performance killed any chances BYU had of pulling out the victory and gave Penn State a much-needed boost heading into post-season competition.

"I knew we could do this all the time, and now the whole team knows we can do it," Masucci said. "We still had a couple breaks, so if we get rid of those breaks we'll be up in the 285 range, and that's what we need."