Penn State coach Steve Shephard has said all season his team is capable of scoring 197.000.
But achieving that mark in Saturday's regular season finale against No. 12 Nebraska would do more than just improve the No. 15 ranking of the Penn State women's gymnastics team. It would be a huge confidence boost going into next weekend's Big Ten Championships, followed by regionals and nationals.
One of the Lions' preseason goals was to win a first-ever conference title. Penn State is ranked No. 3 in the Big Ten behind No. 10 Michigan and No. 13 Illinois, both of which suffered 2010 defeats at the hands of the Lions at Rec Hall.
"If we could come out of this meet with like a 197.000 and then just kind of coast off that, that'd be great," junior Danielle Hover said.
In several meets, small mistakes have prevented the Lions from getting the score they know they know is in reach. At Utah last Friday, for example, freshman Madison Merriam fell on an uneven bars routine she has not fallen on all year, even in practice. Senior co-captain Rosie Smith also made a mistake on her bars routine, and freshman Sharaya Musser fell in the floor exercise.
Shephard said this week's practices have been nothing out of the ordinary, and it is just a matter of the gymnasts doing more repetitions and focusing on making the small corrections.
Senior Casey Rohrbaugh said the Lions focused on specific parts of their routines such as amplitude or form in Monday's practice and have been working on consistency.
"At this point we know our routines," Rohrbaugh said. "We know we can do them, and we need to fix little things like out of bounds, straight legs, pointed toes. The little things that aren't necessarily as big as a fall, but that's what postseason meets are won and lost by."
In 2009, Penn State's season finale was at Maryland against three lesser opponents: Arizona, Yale and the Terrapins. Though Rohrbaugh said it still gave the team momentum going into the conference championships, a good score against the Cornhuskers, who average more than .300 better than Penn State, would be huge.
Competing against good competition, she said, helps to show the Lions where they are as a team and gives them experience in the big meets that mirror Big Tens and subsequent postseason meets.
Hover said she thinks the Lions are in a better spot now than they were last year, even though sophomore All-American Whitney Bencsko is out for the season. Though it is a big loss, Hover pointed out Penn State's scored 196.725 two weeks ago against rival Michigan, which was the Lions' highest score since March 16, 2007.
"I think they're in really good spirits," Shephard said. "I think they're concentrating on preparing themselves for postseason, and I think there really excited about getting into the postseason and looking forward to the big meets."
