For the second straight week, the Illinois men’s gymnastics team posted the nation’s top team score. Saturday’s score of 220 points flat was nearly 2.5 points better than the score they put up in Iowa City on March 5 – and just the way that the team’s four seniors wanted to leave Huff Hall. Seniors Ted Brown, Adam Pummer, Anthony Russo and Justin Spring were honored on Senior Day following the end of the meet.

“Adam, Justin, Anthony, Teddy – it’s a great group of seniors, it’s sad to say we’re going to lose them next year,” head coach Yoshi Hayasaki said. “But what they have done in the last four years is unbelievable, something that I’m very proud of.”

In front of 1,546 fans, the Illini defeated No. 12 Army by nearly 24 points. Illinois swept the top three spots on each event and had four new team-high event scores in floor exercise (37.350), still rings (37.300), parallel bars (36.750) and high bar (38.200).

The No. 4-ranked Illini started off the meet with a season-high on floor exercise, but faltered on pommel horse with three gymnasts falling off the apparatus. Freshman Chris Lung and sophomore Tyler Yamauchi tied for first with a score of 8.650. Yamauchi also took first on rings with a season-high 9.550. Although there were still a number of small errors, Hayasaki said pommel horse is the event that is getting the most attention and that there is improvement.

The two stars for Illinois, though, were two of its seniors – Pummer and Spring.

In his first attempt at the all-around this season, co-captain Pummer took first with a 54.450. Pummer took three event titles with season-highs on floor exercise (9.500) and vault (9.350) and tying his career-high on parallel bars with a 9.750. After the meet, Pummer said that he was “a ball of emotion” and loves everything about Illinois from the fans to the team to Huff Hall.

Despite his emotions, Pummer said he had a strategy for the meet and knew those emotions couldn’t interfere.

“I just came in today knowing that I got to give everything out there,” Pummer said. “I’m not going to have this last senior meet again and I just went out knowing I have four years behind me and all that experience so I wasn’t nervous, I was just excited about everything.”

Co-captain Spring continued to impress as he won his fourth parallel bars title of the year with a 9.700. Spring, who was named a finalist for the prestigious Nissen-Emery award on Thursday, finished in second with season-highs on high bar (9.550) and tied for third on floor exercise (9.200).

Spring said Saturday was a day that everything came together for the Illini with it being Senior Day, his birthday and putting up the season-best score in Huff Hall with a record crowd.

“This is a place where I’ve had some embarrassing moments, but I’ve had some great moments – we won Big Tens in this arena – it was amazing to go out with everything out on top,” Spring said.

The Illini’s then-season high score in Iowa City put to rest thoughts that the Illini would not peak at the right time. But now with two top meets in a row, Pummer said that the Illini’s momentum is “snowballing.”

The Illini will have a week off before going to Iowa City to take part in the Big Ten Championships on March 24-25. Since the Illini’s performance was not perfect in all areas, Spring said that the Illini are still capable of more.

“Like after last meet, we are going to take this as motivation,” Spring said. “We just want to be untouchable at Nationals and I think we are putting up scores that are close to that.”