While climbing the mountain that is the indoor track and field season, the Penn State women's team was young and inexperienced. Now almost as if they have completed a right of passage, the Nittany Lions have descended the mountain wise beyond their years.

"The future looks great," Penn State coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "We've been working hard and learning a lot."

The Lions have a variety of experiences from which to draw knowledge. There are the peaks of the season, at which the squad dominated home meets such as the Penn State National Open and the Sykes-Sabock Challenge Cup.

At these two meets, freshmen Shana Cox and Gayle Hunter were at their pinnacles for the year. During the Penn State Open, Cox broke the Multi-Sports Facility record in the 400-meter dash with a time of 52.75 seconds. At the Sykes-Sabock Challenge, Hunter broke a 20-year-old record in the pentathlon with a total of 4,059 points. Hunter led the Big Ten in the pentathlon for the rest of the year.

Also, junior Jennifer Leatherman, a transfer from the U.S. Naval Academy, was a breakout star in the 20-pound weight throw and the shotput, breaking a Penn State record in the weight throw with a mark of 69 foot 11 inches. Leatherman led the conference in both events and earned All-America honors in both at the NCAA championships.

"We had an excellent year and we did some outstanding things with some good goals for the future," Alford-Sullivan said.

Coming into the Big Ten Championships, it seemed as though the summit -- another title -- was fast approaching. Though the team was young, the Lions had seemed to be the favorites going into Big Tens.

But then Big Tens turned into a huge valley with a loss, failing to win back-to-back conference championships.

Penn State lost the championship because of several unfortunate circumstances. Both Cox and freshman Dominique Blake were disqualified in the 400-meter run at the championships for lane violations.

If Cox and Blake had finished first and second like many believed they could, then they would have gotten the Lions 18 points that could have amounted to a victory. Penn State appealed the decision, but fell short of a unanimous overturn by one vote.

Also in the Big Tens, Penn State learned what it is like to lose a key points scorer to injury. Hunter re-injured her left knee, an injury that had been bothering her since the New Balance Collegiate Invitational on Feb. 5. She ended up finishing all the events in the pentathlon, but her gutsy performance placed her in ninth, one place below scoring for the meet.

"We had some challenges," Alford-Sullivan said. "Some we could control and some we couldn't."

But this is all in hindsight now, as there is no off-season in track and field. What was indoor season now turns into outdoor season. The mountain that has been traveled now looks like an anthill in the rear view mirror.

"We're looking forward to [the outdoor season]," Alford-Sullivan said. "We should have a better team outdoors so we're real excited."