Three-tenths means no trip to Los Angeles for the Penn State women's gymnastics team to compete at the NCAA championships in two weeks.

It was what triggered the distressing and upsetting emotions that teary-eyed Penn State women's gymnastics coach Steve Shephard fought back.

Three-tenths was the deficit that earned Penn State fourth at the Northeast Regionals, which were held at Rec Hall Saturday night. And the deficit that set the Lions apart from Michigan, who earned second place behind Georgia, as the top two teams receive a plane ticket to sunny California and NCAA championships.

"If we hit one more bar routine, we would have been in there," Shephard said. "Add five tenths to our score and we're second. That's how close this meet was. It's disappointing to be that close and not make it."

If Penn State could have counted one fall instead of two on the uneven bars, things would have been drastically different. But the event that has been the Lions' Achilles' heel all season proved to be no different in the most important meet of the season.

"We all make mistakes and unfortunately our mistake came at the wrong time," said junior Lisa Clark, who counted a fall on the bars routine. "I don't know what happened in my head. Something happened where I lost it."

Perhaps it had to do with competing against six of the top teams in the Northeast Region, four of which were ranked ahead of Penn State.

Or maybe it was the fact that the Lions were on the brink of something special and sensed it slipping away after serving as the runner up for the majority of the meet.

"This was just a nerve racking meet for everybody," Clark said. "You have to be on top of everything and can't let anything outside bother you."

Even after the bars rotation, Penn State held the lead over Michigan, but barely, with a 0.1 advantage. The Wolverines responded with a 49.425 on the balance beam and ran away with a second place finish. An above average 49.025 on the beam rounded out competition and placed the Lions behind third-place Iowa State and ahead of fifth-place Missouri.

"We came out here and did the best we could do," Clark said. "Unfortunately our results didn't show."

Clark's individual efforts on the vault and floor exercise, however, did not go unnoticed. Clark's career-high 9.95, which contributed to Penn State's 49.50, meet-high score on the vault, and earned her first place among all competitors and a trip to Los Angeles to compete in the national championships on April 15-17.

"Our vault was tremendous and Lisa did a great job," Shephard said. "Now we have to focus on Lisa going to Nationals at this point."

Clark also qualified to compete in the floor exercise at nationals after a 9.9 earned her first place among regional competition. Still, Clark isn't completely satisfied.

"What I was really expecting was for us [to got to nationals] as a team," Clark said.

Three-tenths.

It seems so little, but means so much.