Beamtown

Gymwomen put on beam clinic in victory

After its rotation on bars, the Penn State women's gymnastics team huddled up as the gymnasts put their arms on each other's back.

The coaching staff offered words of encouragement, and at the end the squad roared, "We are Penn State." Then, the No. 3 Lady Lions put on a clinic on beam to show the crowd why it is their best event.

The Lions hit all seven of their routines, scoring a 48.925 on the event. After the rotation, Penn State had a comfortable lead and finished the competition with a 193.675-187.625 victory over North Carolina State in front of 3,294 spectators at Rec Hall Saturday.

"I think it was a great confidence builder," Penn State coach Steve Shephard said. "Last meet, we had two falls on beam, we had to count one. At New Hampshire, we had to count a fall, so I think having seven for seven is a great confidence builder for the team."

Sophomore Ashley Wilson earned a career high on floor with a 9.825 and capped the night off by winning the Ann Carr Award, given for most inspirational performance by a gymnast at each Penn State home meet.

Penn State had a little trouble on bars which prompted the pep talk before beam. Senior Joanna Knox received a 9.15 and Smith got a 9.425. Leopoldus uncharacteristically suffered a fall on the apparatus and scored a 9.325.

"I think bars killed us. I think we can do a lot better than that and I think tonight we earned every tenth that we got," Shephard said. "I think it is a good learning experience for the athletes and it makes them work harder to try to earn the higher scores."

After the bars rotation, however, the Lions did not have a score lower than 9.6 on beam and Cuff and Taylor both set career highs with a 9.775 and 9.825, respectively. Wilson began the rotation with a 9.625 and was followed by a strong routine by sophomore Janae Whittaker, who earned a 9.725. After the freshmen received their career highs, sophomore Nikki Smith scored a 9.775 and Leopoldus finished it off with a 9.825.

"I think we did a really great job of keeping positive and coming off bars and hitting seven for seven on beam which was really, really great," Whittaker said.

While Penn State was doing well on each event, the Wolfpack had problems from the start. On bars, their first rotation, they suffered a couple falls leading to two scores below 9.0. N.C. State endured at least one more fall on the remaining three events which dented its total score. For the night, the team had eight official falls which put a frown on the face of Wolfpack coach Mark Stevenson.

"I found out over 18 years as a head coach in college that you're going to have one of these meets every year," he said. "It's good that we get this now because that's going to get them focused and push us forward for the rest of the season."

Leopoldus said the meet was a good experience for the team because the gymnasts who did not do as well last weekend came back strong this weekend. With three meets completed, two at home, the Lions feel prepared for the next two weekends on the road.

"We're not looking for big scores, what we're looking for is to hit every single time," Leopoldus said. "Two home meets in a row, everyone got started into school a little bit, got enough rest, and now we're ready to go on the road for two weeks."