It was a tale of two squads, as the No. 16 Penn State women's gymnastics team showed its good side and its ugly side in two meets last week.
On March 4, the Nittany Lions traveled to the University of New Hampshire and posted a 195.7 overall score, characteristic of their solid performances earlier in the season. Senior Lisa Clark had one of her strongest meets of the season, scoring season highs on the uneven bars and the floor exercise, with a 9.75 and a 9.875, respectively. She also placed second in the all-around with a score of 39.2.
"In New Hampshire, we did really well. We had a really good performance and it was a really consistent meet," senior Jennifer Orlando said. "We went 24-24, which has been one of our goals for the season. It moved us up in the rankings to No. 16."
To go 24-24, six gymnasts receive high scores in all four events.
Flying high, the Lions went south to take on No. 2 Florida and No. 7 LSU in a tri-meet Friday. The good luck didn't follow, and the team turned in its lowest performance of the season, posting a 193.2.
Clark did well again but in the other two events. She scored a 9.825 on vault and tied her career high on the balance beam with a score of 9.85. However, it was not good enough to salvage the Lions' mistakes.
"It was a very uncharacteristically poor performance. It was just a lot of little mistakes. Judging was tight and we just didn't perform well," Penn State women's gymnastics coach Steve Shephard said.
Bars and beam were again the main problem that the Lions were having. Although they only had to count senior Meredith Hoover's fall on bars, the scores were too low to bring up the overall score. However, the team sees this meet as a learning experience.
"We are all disappointed, but we are taking it as something to overlook and to move on and work hard and do our best in the gym," Orlando said.
The Lions are lucky this meet came two weeks earlier and not during the Big Ten Championships. The meet against Florida and LSU gave them great championship experience, which is something they will need when they go to Big Tens. At the moment, however, the team is trying to fix the little problems so they won't flare up during the meet and cause another poor performance.
"We need to continue to focus on execution, we need to improve our endurance on floor," Shepard said. "We need to compete with more confidence and determination during the meet."
