Senior Justin Spring said the Illini started off Saturday’s men’s gymnastics meet in Iowa City, Iowa “terrible.” But with season-high scores on rings (35.950), vault (36.750), parallel bars (36.750) and high bar (36.150), the Illinois men’s gymnastics team rebounded and posted a team score of 211.850 to defeat No. 5 Michigan and No. 6 Iowa.

“We’ve been stressing that whatever happens early or late, you have to keep your head on straight,” Spring said. “We have so much ground to cover; we can do so much better. I think we’re on a great path.”

Head coach Yoshi Hayaskai said Illinois (8-2, 6-2 Big Ten) is for the first time this season competing where they’re supposed to be competing. The factor: gymnasts competing in single and double events are stepping up, he said.

The Illini had nine gymasts record top-three finishes including four first-place finishes. Sophomore Tyler Yamuchi tied his season-high on rings with a 9.300 to earn his third rings title of the season, while sophomore Wes Haagensen grabbed the vault title with a career-high 9.500. Haagensen also finished third in the all-around compeition with a 49.300.

High bar and parallel bars continued to be Illinois’ strong suit as it took home event titles on both apparatuses. A dominating performance on parallel bars led to the Illini’s sweep of the top-six places and Spring’s second consecutive title with a 9.600. Spring, who competed in his second meet off a strained kneecap said that his knee is the least of his worries and that it is his shoulder which is causing him some aggravation. Spring competed for the first time in floor exercise and vault since the injury and put up a season-high 9.350 on floor.

Sophomore Ross Bradley’s season-high 9.300 on high bar was also his second career event title.

“I was surprised that I got a win, (but) I’m confident with my routine; I’m glad I could put it together,” Bradley said. “Everyone’s focusing on individual goals and that’s helped us as a team, when we go in day in and day out, it pays off as a team.”

While the Illini continue to try to put up consistent scores on five of their events, the one causing problems since the beginning of the season continues to be pommel horse. In Iowa, Illinois posted a season-low on the event with a 31.000. Senior Ted Brown could only manage a fourth-place finish and an 8.100, while freshman Chris Lung tied for seventh with a 7.650. Hayaskaki said he would like to point to the lack of routines and training sessions on the horse, but is still not sure why their is no consistency.

“We have to do some soul-searching on that event to start hitting,” he said. “Right now, we’re making too many mistakes.”

A minimum improvement Hayasaki would like to see is four men hitting every event, with room for only two misses.

“We’ve not done a four-guy hit in an event,” Hayaskai said “If we do that, we will increase substantially on points. If we do that, this team could go another four points.”

As the Illini continue to work out some of their consistency problems, Spring said he is not worried and that Illinois reminds him of Penn State, who in 2004 went into Nationals ranked third and ended up winning the championship.

“We’re that third-place team putting up OK scores; we’re not even close to putting up what we can possibly do, ” Spring said. “We’re right on track to totally rock NCAA’s and have other teams say, ‘Where did Illinois come from?'”