Deductions and costly falls continued to plague the Illinois women’s gymnastics team when it took third in a triangular contest between No. 24 Iowa and No. 19 Michigan State on Sunday afternoon.

Finishing with a score of 194.150, head coach Bob Starkell is remaining positive about the mistakes his athletes made.

“We really did well, you just could not tell off the team score,” he said Monday morning. “(We had) good energy, good showing, we did some awfully good gymnastics.”

The Big Ten battle was won by the Hawkeyes (4-4), with a team score of 195.575. MSU (4-3) finished slightly ahead of the Illini (1-6) by posting a 194.875.

Illinois had defeated Iowa in January for its only win of the season, while just a week before Sunday’s meet the Spartans had slighted the Illini at home by a slim margin.

Past performances aside, the team was forced to leave Iowa City empty-handed.

“We had a much better meet this time around than we did at Iowa the first time,” Starkell said.

“Against Michigan State, very similar weekend, other than some of our younger people helped out a little more (this time).”

Even though the gymnasts were excited about the rematch, mistakes prevented the team from securing the win. Senior Michelle McGrady and junior Julie Crall both fell on the balance beam, the first event of the meet.

Starkell said he believes McGrady’s and Crall’s mistakes were caused by rushing some of their skills and both would have had a hard time fighting to stay on the apparatus.

Freshman Lashlee Morris had a rough day with landings, falling on both the floor exercise and the uneven bars.

She began the meet well by posting a career-high 9.800 on the balance beam, but the Leesburg, Fla., native has some work to do in practice to keep her confidence up.

Allison Buckley continued her recent dominance by posting her season-best all-around score of 39.225, just behind Iowa’s Jenifer Simbhudas’ 39.275.

The freshman placed second on both the vault (9.825) and floor exercise (9.875) and tied for fourth on the beam (9.825) with Simbhudas.

Though its victory held regular-season implications, Iowa is looking at the win in a broader picture.

“We are all very excited about today’s win,” said Iowa head coach Larissa Libby in a press release.

“The team came out after a rough night at Iowa State, Friday, and showed what they are made of. They showed they are Big Ten Championship contenders and we can go onward and upward from here.”

Like Libby, Starkell believes his team is on the up-and-up. As the Illini prepare for their SEC meet against Auburn on Friday night, the humble coach is excited about the remainder of the regular season.

“Bottom line is, in their hearts, they know they did a good job,” Starkell said.

“I thought we did a much better job on energy level from start to finish. Even when we had mistakes, they backed those people up.”