After MSU’s tough loss to Penn State — by a wide gap of 2.075 points — on Saturday, the Spartans will face No. 4 Michigan at 7 p.m. on Friday in Ann Arbor.

The gymnastics team had a few falls during Saturday’s Autism Awareness meet — on vault, beam and floor — but all athletes landed safely and are ready to compete again on Friday, according to head coach Kathie Klages. The team will have to make some changes to reach its full potential, she said.

“The lineup is to be decided depending on practices,” Klages said. “It’s pretty open right now and I’ll leave it to the athletes to compete in practice.”

Sophomore Brittany Holmes said that the coaches have been a noticeably different this week in practice in the hope that the team can improve going forward.

“The coaches are a lot tougher. It’ll depend on how we hit everything in the gym, but I have no idea what the coaches are going to choose,” Holmes said.

Holmes also said that during the week of practice before competing against U-M, the “energy in the gym is normally higher.”

Besides having good energy during the week, Klages said Monday’s practice was “the best practice of the year.”

“We’re digging a little deeper and working on taking what they do at practice down to the competition floor,” Klages said.

Klages said after competing against Penn State, the team will be working more with sports psychologists to have more mental and physical confidence, because U-M “is a very tough team.”

To have this confidence, they will focus on what they do and not on the other team, Klages said.

Their sport is about numbers, so they will focus on their own scores.

“The rivalry is just like football and basketball, but (U-M gymnastics) has been one of the top programs for a while,” Klages said.

Although the energy during the last meet against Penn State was better than previous meets, junior Ashley Noll said the coaches tell them to forget about the bad parts to compete their best.

“The goal is to try having the team be more confident as a whole and focus on ourselves and not on other teams,” Noll said.

Noll fell during vault on Saturday’s meet, but got up and finished the meet very strong, scoring a 9.45 on beam and a 9.475 on bars.

“I’m working on being more confident myself,” Noll said. “It’s the first season I’m competing on all four events.”

Holmes said that her goal is to score 9.8s or higher in every event, and wants to “get out” of the 9.7 and 9.75 scoring range.

“I want the team to make regionals without stress this year,” she said.

The way to avoid getting caught in the stress and errors, according to Klages, is to have each athlete do what they’ve been trained to do.

“Things aren’t always perfect. … We talk about it on a regular basis, they need to focus and (they) each have a job to do,” she said.

After Monday’s practice and the week to prepare, she and the rest of the coaches will choose the gymnasts who will compete against the Wolverines on Friday, where Michigan will host the program’s first Autism Awareness meet.