The last time the Illinois men’s gymnastic team competed against Oklahoma, it finished standing at the top of the podium with pride. However, when the two teams met this weekend, the Illini found themselves in the opposite position, looking at the first-place Sooners from the third spot on the podium.

“They have clean, consistent routines right now,” Illinois head coach Justin Spring said. “I don’t know how much upgrading they are going to be doing, but they are hitting and that is only going to get better for them. We haven’t even entered that phase yet, so it’s fortunate that there is still time, but we have some catching up to do.”

Oklahoma led the meet scoring a 441.500, a huge gap between the team and second-place Ohio State, which scored a 429.400. Illinois came in third with a 428.300, followed by Iowa with 422.750. Texas A&M’s club team finished fifth and a group of Texas collegiate all-stars took sixth. Joey Peters turned in one of the best performances for Illinois this weekend. He was awarded his second all-around title Friday in three meets this year.

“I can honestly say he is the hardest worker in this gym at all times,” Spring said. “He’s blindly always asking to do more. So we have to balance him a little bit because we don’t want him to get beat up and injured. … His hard work is the reason he is exceeding expectations.”

Junior Jordan Valdez had a standout performance on the high bar, earning the title with a 15.050 and coming within one hundredth of a point of matching his career-high score. Spring called Valdez’s high bar and parallel bars routines the top in the country.

“I’ve been doing more and more sets, but I’m still kind of tired,” Valdez said. “It finally felt good at the end of my routine. I was confident with my performance, and I was really excited to put up that top score.”

Though most of the injured athletes that competed this weekend were cleared to compete, they were not prepared. There were some bright spots during the meet, but the performances weren’t the level of consistency Spring wanted. But most of the Illini will have the next three weeks off from competition before the Feb. 16 home-opener against Iowa.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Peters said. “We’ve got this three-week break, and I think we’re going to come out like a totally different team. I think people might be starting to count us out, but I think we are really going to use this break to improve and we’re going to be a lot better in the future.”

Senior Yoshi Mori and juniors Chad Mason and Jordan Valdez won’t have the next three weeks off because they will be individually competing in the Winter Cup Challenge, administered by USA Gymnastics. Winter Cup results will determine who earns a spot on the U.S. senior national team. The three Illini attending the Winter Cup, along with those who are recovering from injuries, will have separate training schedules in the gym. The atmosphere over the next few weeks is expected to be very individualistic, Spring said.

“Everyone’s in such a different place right now,” he said. “We pretty much have to write up a day-by-day, event-by-event plan, for all 21 athletes, for the next 14 training days. … Everyday is going to be completely different, and that’s definitely the hardest part about training in our sport for coaches.”

Illinois is a team that isn’t used to losing but has suffered a few losses already early in the season. 

“We do have the confidence that we can still do big things this year, but it’s tough having a couple of losses, especially for a team that is used to winning,” Spring said. “That’s on the guys to work and then step up in the meet to show the world, themselves and us that we are a team that’s going to have some pretty big routines and numbers.”

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