After beating Illinois-Chicago in a 210.000 – 193.050 rout on March 17, the Illinois men’s gymnastics team again turned its attention to a more familiar target: themselves.

“We’re doing a lot of routines, working on our consistency in practice,” junior Wes Haagensen said. “I think everyone’s more prepared now than they were at the beginning of the year. But it’s time to put everything together. We’re not worried about anything, but we need to start peaking.”

The last home meet of the season signaled the beginning of two weeks of practice designed to strengthen the team for the Big Ten Championships on March 30-31. Working out the kinks in their routines is the first step in achieving their goals.

“I like the way we’re coming along,” head coach Yoshi Hayasaki said. “Everybody is getting a little more consistent and things are going well. The hard training is starting to pay off.”

Junior Tyler Yamauchi led the Illini in the win over Illinois-Chicago, spotting a career-high 9.600 on vault and winning two other event titles – still rings (9.450) and parallel bars (9.400). This season, Yamauchi has taken seven event titles and has 14 top-three finishes.

Freshman Chad Wiest put up the Illini’s third highest score this season on the floor exercise (9.550) to earn him the event title. Several other Illini – Tyler Williamson, Chris Lung, Luke Stannard, Nick Stango, Michael Boyer, Andres Saavedra – had top-three finishes on the night.

“We had a good home meet,” Hayasaki said. “Obviously, the competition wasn’t much, but we had some good performances out there. We didn’t put out our best lineup – we gave Wes, (Chris) Silcox and a few other guys some breaks. We have to really juggle our lineup to make sure we’ll be 100 percent when we need it.”

A dark spot in the Illinois-Chicago meet came when junior Jon Drollinger, one of the Illini’s most consistent still rings performers, went down with a muscle tear. His performances this season have helped fortify the still rings as one of Illinois’ most powerful events. Should he miss any time, Illini gymnasts are working through their rings routines to fill in if needed.

“Most of our guys are getting healthier this week, except for maybe Drollinger,” Hayasaki said. “It’s a big concern for us because he can put up some big scores.”

Drollinger sat out practice last week to nurse the injury and his teammates are hoping he’ll make a full recovery in time for Big Tens this weekend.

“I think he strained his bicep muscle; maybe some mini tears in there too,” Haagensen said. “He was doing his rings routines (in the meet against Illinois-Chicago) and he dropped down because he thought he tore his bicep. I guess he dropped down before it tore too severely, so hopefully everything will be all right.

“I have faith he’ll come through,” Haagensen said. “He usually does.”