Going into the final two events of their dual meet with No. 1 Penn State, parallel bars and high bar, the team still had a chance. Head coach Yoshi Hayasaki wanted these events to be last. He and the team know that the events are two of their more consistent.

But in a meet that featured some of the best performances of the year, the team couldn’t find its grip on either of the bar events, dropping the meet 352.300-351.000.

“Those two events really hurt us,” Hayasaki said about parallel bars and high bar. “They were the two events, I felt, were two of our best events.”

Sophomore Luke Stannard was the first to take to the high bar in the final rotation of the meet. At the time Illinois had a 2.250 point lead. Stannard didn’t hit on his routine and had one of Illinois’ first low scores on the event. Hayasaki felt that his mistake on the high bar may have had some ill effects on his team.

“Luke missing for the first time on high bar hurt; he hasn’t missed his routine all year,” Hayasaki said. “It certainly shook them up a little bit.”

A decidedly subdued Wes Haagensen wasn’t looking to make excuses for the team after the meet.

“On high bar, especially, it was devastating; we just choked,” the senior said. “Too much pressure, we couldn’t handle the pressure, and we fell apart. Starting with the first guy until I went, it’s just bizarre.”

The meet was especially hard to swallow for the team after having an off week in advance to prepare for its conference rival and the top-ranked team in the country.

Penn State, too, was prepared for the Illini, however, Nittany Lion junior Casey Sandy admitted the team’s performance was just acceptable and not one of its best.

“We came in here thinking they were pretty close to us,” Sandy said. “We knew it would come down to the wire on high bar, it was just going to be who hit the cleanest. We came away with the win today, but we’re not too satisfied with ourselves. We can do a lot better.”

One of the bright spots for Illinois in the loss was Paul Ruggeri’s all-around performance. The freshman lost the all-around title to Sandy by less than one point, but he took the event title in floor exercise, high bar and tied for the title in vault. As well as he did, Ruggeri was still slightly dissatisfied with himself afterward.

“There’s so much more room for all of us to improve,” he said. “Now we know what we have to do in order to beat a No. 1 team.”