Gymmen finish fourth in windy city

The No. 6 Lions put together one of their best meets of the season this weekend against some tough competition.

Although placing lower than last week, the men's gymnastics team, led by its seniors, scored higher this past weekend and got a glimpse of what is ahead.

The No. 6 Nittany Lions finished fourth Saturday in the Windy City Open with a total team score of 220.95. Senior and captain Joe Roemer led the team with a strong sixth-place finish in the all-around.

"This was one of the team's better meets," Roemer said. "Finishing fourth is not bad considering all the Big Ten teams were there."

Penn State faced, among others, No. 1 Ohio State, No. 5 Iowa and No. 11 Illinois. Coach Randy Jepson said some teams' difficulty levels are slightly higher than the Lions' and doing things better than the Lions.

Jepson said Roemer hit all his routines extremely well and is a great role model for the team.

Senior Tom Ellefson, the Lions' top finisher on the horizontal bar, said the team improved from last week. However, placement and ranking are not as important as gaining experience at this point in the season, he added.

But Jepson seemed more cautious in his comments about this meet, saying at times the team missed a few routines and was sloppy with others. Ellefson agreed.

"We need to pay more attention to form and be slightly more clean on the routines," Ellefson said. "It was a long meet and some of the guys were tired.

"The best thing for us," he added, "is to face these teams now to see exactly where we stand."

Health also will be a key to the Lions' success this year because they lack depth. With only four seniors, the team is still young, so concentrating on gaining experience is imperative if the team is to advance to postseason meets.

The team has to take it easy early in the season in order to maintain its health for the final stretch, Jepson said.

While the team has a great senior class, an inexperienced but still talented freshman class has to pick up some slack if the team hopes to beat clubs like Iowa and Ohio State.

The Lions will be focused on having a strong home meet Saturday against Syracuse, and Jepson said it will not get any easier.

"From now on it just gets harder," he said. "We will continue to work hard in the gym and in the meets and work toward our goal of a national title."