The Illinois women’s gymnastics team will have more than enough energy in the gym when it takes on Iowa at home Saturday.

The No. 21 Illini will compete at home for the second time this season. 

They will also be alongside the men’s team, also hosting Iowa.

Both teams will compete in the annual Gym Jam, where the men and women’s teams compete together, in what the women’s team called a very energetic environment.

“We love being at home, and it’s a lot of fun to compete with the guys,” junior Sarah Fiedler said. “We work out with them in practice, so it’s a more comfortable environment because we do that every day. There just seems to be a lot of energy, so we’re definitely excited.”

The atmosphere should help the Illini in their quest for back-to-back scores of 196 or better, though head coach Kim Landrus said the team has to preform well and go 24-for-24 to do so — something the Illini have yet to do this season.

“We talk a lot about performance with the team,” Landrus said. “The score is something you always know comes along with performance. We can’t worry about the things we can’t control, but we can control how we preform.”

The Illini will be led this weekend by senior Alina Weinstein, who is coming off a program-tying performance in the all-around last weekend against Minnesota, one that won her Big Ten co-gymnast of the week.

Illinois will face an Iowa team that has shown improvement, starting the season 1-2 with a win against Ball State and then losses to Ohio State and Michigan, before bouncing back by finishing second in a quad meet and winning a meet over UIC and Michigan State last weekend.

“They’re a great team,” Weinstein said. “Since they’re in the Big Ten it’s going to be great competition, obviously,”

The Illini are quite similar to Iowa in the way their season has unfolded. Illinois started the season with a third-place finish in a quad meet, and lost to Michigan before finding its stride and hitting a 196.125 over Michigan State in its first meet at home.

Illinois scored its second 196 of the season last weekend with a 196.350 against Minnesota but was outdone by 0.425 points by the Golden Gophers. The loss didn’t dampen the Illini’s spirits as they still see the meet as a push in the right direction.

“What we did last week was a stepping-stone on our road to Big Tens and Nationals,” freshman Giana O’Connor said. “We have been working on all the little things in the gym now we just need to work on turning that over into the meet. We’re calm in the gym and we can do it all in the gym but we just need to work on showing that in the meet so we can continue our success.”

Nicholas can be reached at [email protected] and @IlliniSportsGuy.