The Illinois men’s gymnastics team started the season with a clean sweep against Illinois (Chicago). The Illini captured all of the event titles as well as the all-around crown. They took the top-five spots on the pommel horse and the top four on the high bar. With five standout performances on the pommel horse, Illinois head coach Justin Spring said it will be an event to watch this year.
“We have a lot of specialists, and we can’t even put them all in lineup,” he said. “Once we get that ironed out and routines are flowing well, that is going be a tough lineup to make.”
Freshmen make an impact
There are four new additions to Illinois this year: Fred Hartville, Joey Peters, Max Mayr and Logan Bradley. All four freshmen competed against UIC on Saturday.
Hartville secured his first-ever title on the vault with a 15.300, tying the eighth-highest-scoring vault in school history. Spring said Harville’s vault was “NCAA All-American status already.” Mayr competed in five events for the Illini but was unable to clinch a title during his debut appearance. Peters surpassed teammate Jordan Valdez in the all-around competition with a score of 84.650 to clinch the title. He also won on the parallel bars with a score of 15.200. The team atmosphere was a big change for Peters.
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“It was nerve-racking at first because I’ve never really competed in a team atmosphere,” Peters said. “I can’t wait until next week to be in that atmosphere again and have everyone go crazy and cheer each other on.”
Changes in leadership
With the absence of C.J. Maestas this season because of an injury, there is a big leadership role to fill. Senior Vince Smurro and junior Jordan Valdez will try to fill that spot after they were voted team captains for the 2013 season. Valdez competed in the all-around Saturday for the first time since his freshman year, earning a title on the high bar.
“Vince brings a great causal feel to every meet,” Spring said. “You don’t want to get too worked up before a competition, so I enjoy that about him. And to counterbalance him, you got Joey who is smiling, grinning and is as happy as can be, and then he turns it on. When he goes for a routine, you know Joey is in the zone. For a freshman, Joey is a gamer.”
Setting the tone
With the new six-up, five-count format being used for the first half of the season, teams are adapting to what kind of scores they should expect. The meet against UIC allowed Illinois to experience the differences in the format in a dual meet before competing in the Windy City Invitational this weekend with five other teams. The meet will also be hosted at UIC.
“It was a good point to start and match our scores,” Smurro said. “Nobody knew what a good score was. This was something look at and see what we can improve on because we don’t really know what a good team score is yet.”
Gina can be reached at [email protected] and @muelle30.
