Allison Barber could have easily buried herself in doubt after a less-than-graceful balance beam routine at Missouri's Cat Classic on Friday night.

The St. Louis native, who was competing in front of friends and family, fell on her mount, and as Coach Steve Shephard said: "It was downhill from there."

All the way down to an 8.05, to be exact. But once the routine and the event were over, things only got better.

"To start off on beam, it was kind of hard for me to control my anxiety," she said. "But I had to turn it around and do it for the team."

Barber and the team were able to turn it around after another shaky beam performance, and won the Classic for the first time since 1986. The Lady Lions (8-0) scored a 191.95, squeaking past favorites Arizona (191.7) and Auburn (190.1). In addition, Missouri scored a 189.65 and New Hampshire posted a 186.6.

"We had a rocky start on beam," Shephard said, "But I was real proud of (Barber) for not letting it affect her; I think she was a great example."

Barber went on to score a meet-record 9.9 on the vault, a 9.85 on bars and a 9.7 on the floor. She continued to impress at Saturday night's individual finals, placing in all three of those events -- including first place on the vault.

And as Barber went, so did Penn State.

The Lady Lions were solid on floor and stellar on the final two events, vault and bars.

"We got momentum by picking up our vault scores and bar scores," said sophomore Karen Cimochowski, who surpassed career highs on both those events.

Yet as the meet came to a close, Penn State still had no idea where it stood on the scoreboard. Due to the hectic atmosphere and frenetic pace of the meet, the Lady Lions could only look quizzically at each other until the final standings were announced.

"We were looking back at our coaches to see if they knew," Cimochowski said.

They didn't.

"We had no idea," Shephard added. "We weren't even aware of what the other teams were doing at all."

When the Lady Lions were finally announced as the victors, it erased any memories of last year's disappointment at the Cat Classic, when Penn State was favored to win and finished third.

"We were really excited because we weren't supposed to win," Cimochowski said. "We focused on ourselves and didn't worry about anyone else."

And hitting seven out of nine routines during Saturday night's individual finals only topped off the weekend.

"I was proud of the whole team," Shephard said.