The Illini have had two weeks of rest to prepare for the South Central Regional on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Fayetteville, Ark., where they will face some of the best competition in the country. Joining No. 30 Illinois in the Regional competition are No. 3 Florida, No. 9 UCLA, No. 18 Arkansas, No. 42 Illinois-Chicago and No. 49 Southeast Missouri State.

“We’ve been productive and effective this week in practice, so that’s been a good sign for us,” Robert Starkell, head coach said. “We’ve lost some competitive edge with two weeks off so we’re trying to refocus on our ultimate goal.”

Starkell said his goal is to get the whole team to nationals. He said this weekend is “one or done” because if the team does not place first or second at Regionals, it will not continue to the national competition.

“It’ll be really tough to get (to nationals) because there are some good teams in our region, but it’s definitely not out of the question,” junior co-captain Cara Pomeroy said. “It’s going to take a really good meet for me to get to nationals again, but my main goal is for the team to get there.”

Pomeroy earned a place at nationals during her freshman year when she scored a perfect 10 on bars. But this year she is focused on helping the team perform well at Regionals to show the audience that Illinois is an “up-and-coming” team.

Starkell said his team has the opportunity to have its best meet of the year if it pays attention to detail.

“Going into the meet we are going to focus on one event at a time and never get ahead of ourselves,” Starkell said. “You never want get caught up in the future because then you lose focus on what is right in front of you.”

Starkell said the lineup this weekend will be the same as it was for Big Tens two weeks ago, which had freshmen competing in 13 of 24 routines. He said the freshmen were overwhelmed at Big Tens and will use that learning experience to their advantage as they focus on the gymnastics they have been doing all year.

“We’ve had an up-and-down year,” Pomeroy said. “We want to go in (to Regionals) and do everything we know how to do to show how talented we are.”

Senior co-captain Katie Wild said the team needs to keep up its level of intensity this weekend to achieve the ideal goal of earning a place at nationals. Starkell admits that this is a tough goal to achieve considering the other teams competing in the region.

“We have some tough teams at the top of our bracket,” Starkell said. “UCLA is ranked ninth, which is deceiving – they are ready to go during NCAAs.”

Starkell said he hopes the Illini leave Barnhill Arena on Saturday knowing they did their best. However, he said one advantage for his team will be in matching the level of competition of the team it is competing against.

“If we know how tough our competitors are,” Starkell said, “we up our competitive level.”