The Illinois men’s gymnastics team that competed last weekend won’t look the same at the Windy City Invitational.

The Illini suffered multiple injuries to their starting lineup during the preseason, but the majority of those previously injured will be able to compete this weekend.

The absence allowed some gymnasts the opportunity to compete when they normally would have been on the sidelines. Freshmen Joey Peters and Fred Hartville had standout performances, with each earning their first event titles in their collegiate career. Peters also took the all-around crown, surpassing junior Jordan Valdez. The starting lineups are now chosen from an almost completely healthy roster.

“Lineups are a mess right now,” head coach Justin Spring said after Tuesday’s practice. “We have a 20-man squad and you can only compete 15 guys, so we always have to be aware of that. If I had to choose a lineup right now, I couldn’t do it.”

Among those returning will be captain Vince Smurro and junior all-around competitor Cameron Rogers. Team leader C.J. Maestas will still be cheering from the sidelines because of injury but said he is ahead of schedule with his tricep recovery.

“It’s hard to see them come back and I’m sitting next to the training table,” Maestas said.

In the first meet against Illinois at Chicago, one of the weakest events was the vault. Though Illinois took three of the top-five spots in the individual results, four of the six Illini fell. An outstanding performance from Hartville secured the top spot on the event for Illinois with a 15.3.

“We really stepped up this group to do some upgraded vaults, but we aren’t landing them,” Spring said. “Now we are stuck early in the season with that big debate of, ‘Do we stick with the high level of difficulty and hope it gets there?’ or ‘Do we start reformatting routines and watering down a little bit to start hitting now so we can get the consistency?’ It’s only been one meet, but we are getting to the point where we need to start looking at that.”

At UIC, Hartville competed on vault and floor for the Illini, earning first and eighth on the events, respectively. When the team seemed to be falling apart on the vault, he brought back the energy the team needed with a perfect landing.

“Fred’s vault was amazing,” Smurro said. “There is a lot of potential on floor as well. I think once he works those kinks out he could be one of our top floor competitors at the end of the season.”

Unlike past years, when Illinois began the season with the Windy City Invitational, the team was able to participate in a dual meet. This weekend, the Illini will again travel to Chicago, where they will compete against Ohio State, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa and UIC. Many of the teams will open their season with this meet, giving Illinois a slight advantage of already having competed this year.

“We’ve been a team that’s pretty good at consistently hitting around our top score in postseason, and that’s really all you can train for,” Spring said. “You do that by learning a little bit, adapting a little bit and getting a little bit better every time. Everyone knows exactly what they need to do. They’ve seen their routines in review, they saw their score and if we can improve a little bit on everyone’s routines, those tenths add up and all of a sudden we’ve shot up five points in our team score.”

Gina can be reached at [email protected] and @muelle30.