Luis Vargas, the sophomore sensation, banged his head during warm-ups and had to receive stitches. Vargas is day-to-day and his status for next weekend's meet at Ohio State is up in the air. But, the loss of Vargas wasn't too overwhelming for the Lions men's gymnastics coach Randy Jepson.
"Once [Vargas] went down I knew pretty quickly what we'd have to do, and I always tell the guys you have to be ready because you never know what's going to happen," Jepson said.
The Lions gymnasts were ready, boasting first-place individual finishes in every event except the floor exercise and vault. Also, Lions Kevin Tan and Chad Buczek finished one-two in the all-around scoring.
"Chad Buczek did a great job," Jepson said. "He hasn't competed all-around for a long time and he stepped in and did a great job. That's the kind of stuff we're looking for is the guys that come up and hit routines."
Tan posted wins in the still rings and parallel bars en route to winning the all-around with a score of 53.700. He also finished second on the pommel horse. Tan and Buczek shared the spotlight with senior teammate Zack Roeder. Roeder finished first on the pommel horse with a career high 9.825 and he also finished second on the floor exercise and third in the vault.
"Roeder had a great night," Jepson said. "He hit floor, he rocked horse ... a career high ... it's one of the high scores in two, three years on pommel horse."
However, what seemed like a special night from the outset slowly changed directions as the meet progressed.
"We were sloppy all night long," Jepson said.
The Lions started off strong on the floor and pommel horse, but turned in less than stellar performances on the final two events -- the parallel bars and high bar. The meet was symbolic of how the season has gone so far for the Penn State team.
"It's been a roller coaster ride really," Tan said. "We had such an incredible start and now it's starting to get back to where we thought we would be in the beginning of the season. I think our expectations are really high after the first couple of meets, and we're trying to fill in those shoes and we're putting a lot more pressure on ourselves than we should."
Tan feels the team just needs to relax and transfer the routines that are being hit in practices to the competition. Something that he feels is going to assuredly come with time and experience. Something the team must do to find its place among the national champion contenders at season's end.
"I think we're training well, we're doing what we need to do in the gym...I believe we're gonna be good in the end," Tan said.
