After last Saturday's performance, the Penn State women's gymnastics team was all smiles. When practice began on Monday, however, the Nittany Lions were all business as they prepared to host Cornell (2-6), Missouri (2-4) and New Hampshire (3-2) at 7 tomorrow night in Rec Hall.

As good as practice has been this week for the 19th-ranked Lions, they may have to deal with a major setback. Kristal Uzelac, the Penn State freshman phenom, suffered a knee injury in practice Monday, and her status is unknown for tomorrow's competition. She is due to have an MRI today to determine the extent of her injury. If Uzelac is unable to go, her teammates will have to step up in her absence and fill the void left by one of their hottest performers.

Last week, Uzelac was hampered by shin splints but still managed to record the second-highest uneven bars score in school history, one of many highlights in the Lions 196.300-192.325 win over Maryland.

Their 196.300 mark was their highest of the season, and a number of Lions achieved season-high scores, including team captains Kate Stopper and Meredith Hoover.

"We have lots of depth and lots of other great people on the team," junior Jennifer Orlando said. "It's unfortunate that Kristal got hurt, but it's good because we can see how other people perform in her place."

One gymnast on whom the Lions will be counting is freshman Lindsay Borkan, who was named Big Ten Gymnast of the Week for her performance Saturday that included a 39.325 score in the all-around, the highest by a Penn State gymnast this season. She is the first Lion this season to receive the weekly conference honor. The Lions will try to feed off of that and the many other bright spots from last weekend to fuel them for tomorrow's competition. Shephard wants to see improvement, particularly on the vault and beam.

"On vault, we need to improve on our landings," he said. "No one stuck them last week, so we can gain five-tenths right there. On beam, we stayed on, but we weren't as solid as we were capable of."

So far this week in practice, Shephard has seen "lots of real good things," including solid improvements on the beam.

"We're going to continue to try to get more calm and more confident and perform like we do in practice," he said.

All three of Penn State's opponents come into Rec Hall tomorrow after losses last weekend. New Hampshire lost to Pittsburgh, a team Penn State defeated handily earlier in the season.