During last week's practice sessions, Penn State women's gymnastics coach Steve Shephard had a premonition.

"It is a great opportunity for our team to go to their [Denver's] place and hopefully beat them and make a big statement to the rest of the country," Shephard said.

"That would be huge."

Well, the premonition was right on the mark as Penn State showed the country this past Saturday that it can compete with and beat some of the nation's top gymnastics programs.

The then-No. 22 Penn State women's gymnastics team (4-4) overcame all the odds to muster its highest team score of the season (195.075) and beat two tough competitors in No. 8 Denver (194.175) and No. 11 Iowa State (192.600).

"To compete with the No. 8 team on their floor and to beat them on their floor was a powerful statement for our team and it showed that we are able to compete with anyone," Shephard said.

With already three weeks gone in the season, the Nittany Lions have shown improvement every week.

Since the fifth-place finish at the Super Six Challenge in Georgia the first week, the hard-fought victory over a tough New Hampshire squad last week, and the satisfying victory this week has the Lions taking it upon themselves to improve week by week.

"The last two weekends isn't what our potential is," said senior co-captain Leslie Bair, "so it is nice to see our 195, but we can still do better."

The team's weekly improvements have been aided by a grueling practice schedule that is focused on consistency, intensity and fine-tuning the details of a routine.

"We are taking it week by week and improving on the things each week and when we hit, we will definitely put some big scores up," said senior Katie Rowland, who won the all-around at Denver (39.400).

For example, the coaching staff stressed having a good routine on the uneven bars.

In practice, the gymnasts showed this and it carried over to Denver.

The Lions scored a 48.875 on the bars, which was good enough to win the event.

The 48.875 is also the highest uneven bars score of the 2003 season for Penn State.

"We need to work on bars," Shephard said.

"We start the skill with a cast hand stand and no one really casted at the meet [Denver]."

This week, Penn State will be looking to touch up on its balance beam routines.

The Lions suffered three critical falls (by Bair, Kate Stopper and Katie McAvoy) against Denver and Iowa State that put the team at an early disadvantage.

"Meets are won and lost on beam," Penn State women's gymnastics assistant coach Jessica Bastardi said. "It is so easy to fall off on and it is mentally the most difficult. Luckily, we were still able to come out with the win, but if we are going to reach our high goals we set for ourselves we are going to have to solve that problem."

But the team fought back on the floor exercise and then won the vault and uneven bars to secure the victory.

"That [the comeback] is showing our potential," Rowland said. "If we put everything together and hit, then we can be right up there."

The finish on the uneven bars is also another intuition that Shephard had earlier in the week.

"We actually practiced doing bars as if it was the last event in the Denver meet," Shephard said.

"We practiced thinking that this is our last event and we need to step it up and take it to them. In fact, I told the gymnasts right before they did the bars, we practiced this so take it to them."

That is exactly what Penn State did; they took it to Denver and Iowa State and came away with a big confidence booster.

"To start off rough and then come back and win and create all this energy, this is exactly what we needed in terms of getting momentum for the rest of the season," junior co-captain Kelly Streicher said.

This momentum will also hopefully lead to establishing a program that is built on its rich tradition.

"One of our goals this year is to get back in the light with everybody else and establish Penn State again and the tradition again," Bair said.

"We have the potential and we can show them and I know that we will do it this year."