The Illinois women’s gymnastics team is hungry.

After a win over Iowa by a 10th last Saturday, the No. 18 Illini are ready to face No. 20 Ohio State and show that they belong at the top of a competitive Big Ten.

“Ohio State is a very good team so we have to make sure that we get after everything and we have to be hungrier than our opponent,” head coach Kim Landrus said. “Right now, the Big Ten is very competitive, and right now, in order to come out on top, you have to make sure that you work out and compete to your potential.”

Illinois was down to Iowa last weekend until the final event, but showed resiliency and hunger by putting together an almost perfect floor lineup.

“The team is trying to build on what we did on Saturday,” Landrus said. “We had some great events and then we had some areas in which we could improve and we’ve come in the gym and been focusing on the little things, like the amplitude and the execution, everything that is the wow factor in your performances.”

The Illini won last year’s meeting against the Buckeyes in Champaign, but Ohio State edged Illinois at the Big Ten Championships.

Both teams have been up and down this season, with neither recording back-to-back wins. But Illinois and Ohio State have seemed to hit their respective strides.

“We’re in a good position right now, this is where we wanted to be,” senior Alina Weinstein said. “We need to stay in the top four (in conference) to reach our goals of getting into the evening session of Big Tens, and right now it’s all about maintenance. We need to just make sure we keep hitting the scores that we’ve been hitting and just stay in the same spot or move up, I think we can easily take on that feat and that’s something we have been working for.”

The Illini have been working hard to prepare for competing without junior Amber See.

“We need to figure out how to overcome adversity when something bad happens,” Weinstein said. “We need to be able to push it behind us. I think that we did an awesome job considering the circumstances, but it’s going to be the same situation this weekend. We’re not going to have Amber in our lineup and so we need to figure out a way to be able to overcome that. Hopefully, we see people in our lineups step up and try to make up for her score.”

As is the case every week for the Illini, the little details will make the difference in the final score.

“Mistakes happen, but the good teams get back on track and they don’t lose focus,” sophomore Sunny Kato said. “We just need to keep moving forward and keep up a good pace.”

Nicholas can be reached at

@IlliniSportsGuy.