Gymnastics is based on perfection, and although the women’s Fighting Illini gymnastics team tumbled out of Iowa City on Friday night with a victory against the No. 25 Hawkeyes, absolute perfection was still missing.

“I think it was a good message for them; it was the first win of the year,” head coach Bob Starkell said. “At some point they were a little disappointed because we had some breaks on both beam and bars. Their competitive nature led them to think, ‘This is good, but we can do a lot better.'”

Going into the meet against an evenly matched Iowa team, No. 22 Illinois was hoping to improve on its 0-2 record and have every move on every apparatus finally hit. Unfortunately for the Illini, a fall on the bars and two uncharacteristic mistakes on the beam showed Starkell there is still work to be done in practice.

“(Freshman) Allison Buckley’s hand slipped on the low bar and slid off,” Starkell said about the first event of the night. “The good thing was the next two competitors hit two solid bar routines. Then on vault, we did really well. Floor, we did really well on. On beam, (sophomore) Nicole Cowart did a wonderful job starting off the group. Two freshmen fell on beam, and as freshmen, they are trying to do things they don’t characteristically do in practice.”

Even though the mistakes stick out in Starkell’s mind, several of his athletes dominated against their Big Ten foe.

In her first meet of the season as an all-around competitor, Sarah Schmidt won the title with a score of 39.050, a career high for the sophomore. Right behind her in a second-place tie with Iowa’s Jenifer Simbhudas was Cowart with a combined score of 38.975 for the four apparatuses.

Buckley, for the second straight week, came back home sporting two titles for both vault and floor exercise with scores of 9.875 and 9.825, respectively. Junior Julie Crall captured the beam title for the second week in a row with a 9.875 effort. On the night, Illinois tied nine career-high scores and 13 season-high scores.

With the overwhelming amount of personal successes, the team is still chasing after the perfect meet. This week in practice, Illinois will focus on fixing those costly mistakes before Denver comes to town this Saturday.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Starkell about the upcoming meet. “I think we are going to have the mentality that we are going to take care of our home field; do the things we have control over and try to get through four events with no major deductions.”