On Saturday, Illinois (4-3, 1-2) suffered an almost double-digit loss to Penn State (5-1, 2-1), 321.750-312.550. This is probably not the outcome the team expected for its Senior Day and final meet at Huff Hall for the season. 

While not all is bad, there are things the team must work on during its two-week break.  

Keep: Vault lineup 

If there’s one thing the Illini do well, it’s vault. The vault is their most consistent event and produces the highest scores. 

On Saturday, three Illini tied for first place. Sophomore Garret Schooley, senior Amari Sewell and freshman Matthew Vu Nguyen vaulted their way to first place with a score of 14.250. Vu Nguyen’s score also doubled his career high, which was previously 13.700, just one week prior.

The Illini are a force to be reckoned with on the vault, as they currently hold the No. 1 spot on the apparatus. It is also one of their highest-scoring events all season, meaning it is crucial to the team’s success to keep doing what they’re doing. 

Keep: Brotherhood 

For anyone who has seen the Illini compete, it is evident how close the team is. The strong bond between the athletes is the glue that holds the team together. 

“I think our team culture is really close,” said senior Max Farkhadau. “Everyone’s always trusted each other, and I know other teams tend to have cliques, especially in bigger teams, but I think that we’ve done a really good job of keeping everyone together, and no one really feels separate from the team.”

The strong connection is apparent and a powerful force in the team’s success. It is an additional advantage with the inner workings of the program, giving athletes a friendly environment when they compete against each other.

“There’s no hostility,” Farkhadau said. “When someone’s doing something, everyone’s always there to help rather than give a side eye … That person might take your lineup spot, or they might be in a competition. Everyone looks past that fact in order to help each other out.”

The team’s ability to rely on each other despite competition for the coveted lineup spots is where its success stems from. Regardless of a stick landing or a fall off the pommel horse, the team will pick each other up and prioritize it first. They embody the classic saying: “There is no ‘I’ in team.”

Improve: Pommel horse

With a team ranked No. 2 for the pommel horse event, its performance on Saturday did not showcase that caliber. Part of the reason could be that sophomore Brandon Dang was away earning gold for the pommel horse at the FIG World Cup Series in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

The Illini were clearly not having their best day on the pommel horse. Two athletes fell mid-routine and had trouble maintaining correct form to avoid deductions. With Dang’s absence, the entire lineup seemed to fall apart. What is normally one of the strongest events for them quickly turned into their worst event of the day. 

They must search for more depth in the lineup to get back to the top. However, even if the Illini scored seven points higher to make their score similar to their previous meet, they would still fall short to the Nittany Lions. 

While Dang is on his way home from an international assignment, he won’t be back for long. Dang will leave for another at the end of March when the team will compete against Ohio State (4-2, 1-1). It is unclear whether Dang will compete with the team for its last dual meet of the season.  

However, to bounce back after this week’s pommel horse performance, the team must account for Dang’s potential absence from the lineup.

Improve: Experience 

Part of why the Illini did not compete to their usual standard is because of the lack of opponents they have faced within the conference. Before Saturday, the team previously competed against a Big Ten opponent in February and saw its last win over a conference team in January. 

The team also had a bye week following its loss to Michigan in February. The following week, the Winter Cup was held, and only a handful of athletes competed. This means most athletes on the team went three weeks without competing at a normal meet. 

A lack of opportunity means athletes have much less experience in that environment. With only 24 spots open when meet day arrives, a fight for the lineup is on everyone’s mind.

“Even with the guys injured, it’s still really hard to get into the lineup,” Farkhadau said. “The top guys aren’t always going to be in because they might make a mistake that puts the next guy right under them up. That’s why lineups aren’t always consistent, and they’re also pretty hard to make.”

With a statistical program determining the lineup, the influence of outliers could hinder the team’s score. The program takes two weeks of the team’s average scores from the gymnasts, and the top four scorers enter the lineup for that meet.

The Illini will compete against the Buckeyes at the end of the month to close out their 2025 regular season, with lineups pending.

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