Illinois men’s gymnastics is coming off of a massive win against Greenville this past weekend, sweeping every event in the meet alongside a few career highs from both all-around graduate Michael Fletcher on the floor with a score of 14.300 and sophomore Tate Costa on the parallel bars with a score of 13.650.
Costa shared how he thought the team felt coming off of a win, despite there being mistakes it is trying to fix this week before the home opener meet at Huff Hall against No. 1 Oklahoma, which is also 3-0 for their season.
“Overall, the boys were somewhat pleased,” Costa said. “We had a decent amount of mistakes that we’re trying to fix to get ready for OU (Oklahoma), especially on our dismounts we took a lot more steps and a lot more deductions on our landings than we wanted to. So going into this week we’re definitely focusing on that, hoping to pull out a win against OU at home.”
Costa also shared his thoughts and feelings on his improvement from the past year. He also believes that this isn’t the end of his improvement, as a goal of his is to continue to improve his scores heading closer to the end of the regular season and the start of the championship season.
“I’m feeling pleased with the improvement I’ve made over the past year,” Costa said. “The scores are definitely not all that I have; definitely planning on continuing to up those and keep going as we head into the postseason with the more important meets of the season.”
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Despite being ranked No. 1 this week and having won all three of its openers, Oklahoma has only faced two teams. The Sooners’ first win was over Air Force (413.600-382.750) on Jan. 13 before heading to the 2024 Rocky Mountain Open on Jan. 20. At Rocky Mountain, Oklahoma won against Air Force again (420.350-392.750) while also besting No. 3 Nebraska (420.350-409.600).
Meanwhile, Illinois has also only competed at two meets thus far but has faced five different opponents with a 4-1 record. Victories over Simpson, NIU and Washington came at the Windy City Invitational with a fourth at Greenville this past weekend. The Illini’s only loss this season is to the reigning Big Ten champions — No. 4 Michigan.
Costa shared how the team mindset this week is all about perfection to win against Oklahoma this Saturday, but the previous win and their current win streak of four are helping boost the team’s overall confidence. Costa also shared that the team is truly going for practice makes perfect this week — so hopefully it’ll be as perfect as possible as it takes on Oklahoma.
“It definitely helps to come off of a win; the boys are a little more confident than we would have been,” Costa said. “It’s definitely the mindset of being perfect this weekend because that’s what we need to do to beat Oklahoma — just getting ready to hit 30 for 30, honing in on our landing especially and just going for perfection at practice. I’m sure Oklahoma is doing very similar to that, so we are trying to be perfect every day at practice so we’re ready to be perfect at the meet.”
Illinois will be competing at 4 p.m. on Jan. 28, hosting Oklahoma in its first home meet of the season.
