The Penn State women's gymnastics team missed Rec Hall.

After opening the 2004 campaign with a loss at Alabama, the team came home to Rec Hall Saturday night to take on Central Michigan in its first home meet of the season.

As the meet progressed, it was obvious that the effects of the Alabama meet would not be carrying over.

"I think we knew early on that we were going to have a good night," junior Lisa Clark said.

"Being at home in front of the home fans is an amazing feeling."

Improving on every event score from the previous meet, the Nittany Lions defeated the Chippewas 195.575-193.125, improving their 2004 record to .500 and notting their first win of the season.

Opening the meet on the vault, the Lions got strong performances from Jennifer Orlando and Meredith Hoover, who scored 9.800 and 9.850, respectively.

Clark posted the meet's highest vault score with a 9.875.

After the vault the Lions moved on to the uneven bars. For the second straight week, the team was disappointed in its performance.

"We're letting the problem stay a problem instead of fixing it," Penn State women's gymnastics assistant coach Bill Lorenz said.

"The thing is, we're not a bad bars team. We just need to figure out what's going wrong so we can fix it."

In its third event of the night, Penn State moved over to the balance beam, which many people believe to be the team's best event.

The Lions would not score lower than 9.825 on the beam, with Stephanie Sullivan and Hoover both scoring a 9.900. Junior Kate Stopper posted the meet's high score on the bars receiving a mark of 9.925.

Stopper was not finished, though. In the floor exercise, she once again led the way for Penn State with a meet-high score of 9.900.

Hoover and Orlando both scored 9.850, contributing to the team's floor exercise score of 49.200.

The Ann Carr award, given at every home meet to the athlete whose routine provided the most inspiration, was instead presented to the entire balance beam team.

The six-girl team scored the Lions' highest event score of the night, even though the team contained four freshmen, Gena Shingle, Ashley Mehrer, Sullivan and Corissa Pirkl -- all competing in their first collegiate meet.

"My theme for tonight is 'I love the freshmen,' " Lorenz said.

"They did an amazing job in their first home meet. If we could do it, we would never leave Rec Hall, we love this place."

There really is no place like home.