Last Saturday did not return the results the Penn State women's gymnastics team wanted or expected. The team finished third out of the four teams competing including West Virginia, Nebraska and James Madison.

But the Lions will try and change that as they head back out on the road this time to face 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Rhode Island.

"We obviously had a bad meet last weekend," Penn State sophomore Leslie Bair said. "We need to step it up. We need to go into it to have fun and treat it like a home meet. Just to have fun and do what we can do."

Penn State finished last week's meet with a score of 194.925 and dropped in the polls to No. 12, down two spots from last week.

Despite the finish last weekend, Penn State did have a good day on vault, scoring a 49.000 in the event, its highest score this season. Senior Gemma Cuff led the Nittany Lions in the event scoring a 9.925, her season best.

At practice this week the Nittany Lions have been working on adding difficulty into their routines to make their starting values and final scores higher.

"Right now I think we are working really well at supporting each other and helping each other out and keeping each other motivated," freshman Richelle Simpson said.

And if Penn State can carry that momentum into this weekend coming out with a win should be no problem for the Nittany Lions.

"We have a good bond with our team and we all want to do better than we did last week" Bair said.

"We all have it in us and I think we will be able to put it together."

Rhode Island's highest score of the season is a 193.250, scored Feb. 4 in a quadrangular meet against West Virginia, New Hampshire and Yale, two of which Penn State has already faced this season. Penn State beat New Hampshire Jan. 20 and fell behind West Virginia last weekend.

"I think we really did have a great week of practice," Penn State women's gymnastics assistant coach Jessica Bastardi said. "The things we've been trying to do they've been successful at in the gym.

"They are recognizing we are not where we want to be. We are taking steps to correct it and that should really build their confidence."

And so it comes down to the issue the team has dealt with for a majority of the season — confidence. If the Lions go into this weekend with a lot of it, the result in the end should be no question.

"We've talked a lot about keeping our confidence level up and knowing when we go into a meet we can do it," Simpson said. "We've done it before, we can do it again. I think we've sorted those things (from last weekend) out."