While currently being ranked No. 22, Illinois women’s gymnastics is preparing to head to Lincoln, Nebraska, to compete against Nebraska this Saturday.
Illinois women’s gymnastics has had a strong start to their season, competing against six teams thus far with a record of 5-1.
The Illini first competed at the Super 16 in Las Vegas, earning a total of 195.825 and beating No. 21 Washington, who scored 195.000, and San Jose State, who scored 194.950. Illinois did, however, face a loss to No. 10 Denver, who scored 196.850, but the squad came out in second place at the Super 16.
The following week, the Illini competed at home against three more schools and came out on top with a score of 196.500. Illinois beat West Virginia, who scored 195.050; Western Michigan, who scored 196.000; and UW Oshkosh, who scored 192.475.
“Definitely starting off strong with a bunch of wins has helped our team’s confidence,” said graduate all-around Mia Takekawa. “We obviously know what we are capable of and what we’ve been training for all preseason, and seeing it come out exactly how we wanted the past couple of meets has been really good for our team confidence.”
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This upcoming weekend, Illinois will compete at Nebraska. The Cornhuskers are currently 2-2 for their season. Nebraska saw a win against Iowa State earlier this month, two losses against Arizona and Boise State and a win against North Carolina at the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad this past week.
Nebraska went into the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad after being ranked No. 16 during week one and is now ranked No. 26.
Takekawa mentioned the team’s goal this week at practice was to clean up any minuscule details that might need to be fixed ahead of the weekend, hoping to strengthen their score.
“We have a lot of energy, and we’ve been really happy with our performance,” Takekawa said. “We’re really hungry for the details and to boost our score even more this week.”
To her, Takekawa is not worrying about an offense or defense when competing — instead, their performance is solely based on their preparation as a team and how they feel during the meet day.
“It really just depends on what we do as a team,” Takekawa said. “It really just depends on how we prepare and how confident we are that day.”
Illinois women’s gymnastics will compete at Nebraska at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.
