The Illinois women’s gymnastics team ended its season on a high note Friday.

The Illini tallied their highest score ever at the NCAA Championship semifinals with a 195.700.

“It’s such a great accomplishment,” junior Sarah Fiedler said. “I heard someone talking about how one team … had made it to nationals for the 31st time or something, so it’s just really awesome that its only like, our third time in school history. So to be a part of this team, it’s such an amazing feeling; to be a part of Illini history is such an honor.”

Although Illinois finished fifth out of six and 11th overall at nationals and didn’t move on to Super Six, the team feels it competed well.

“Honestly I thought we did a really good job,” Fiedler said. “We struggled a little bit on bars, but I think that we’re really known for being able to work together no matter how many mistakes we might make. We really bounced back on beam and floor after we competed bars. It really showed how strong we were as a team after we had that little bump in the road. We finished strong.”

The Illini were led by senior Alina Weinstein, who finished in a tie for first on floor and advanced to the individual event finals on Sunday where she finished 12th in the country.

“It’s a wonderful accomplishment for her to bounce back after her beam performance and go out on the floor and have fun and do her routine at the level she did and get that 9.900,” head coach Kim Landrus said. “It says so much about her character and herself as an athlete.”

The team cycled through the events in the Olympic order, starting on vault, where the team was led by Weinstein and junior Amber See, who scored 9.875 and 9.825, respectively.

Illinois then moved to bars where they had been strong all season. The Illini scored below their season average on the event and didn’t have a competitor score over a 9.800 resulting in a 48.500.

“We just opened up the door for judges to take deductions, and they did,” Landrus said.

Fiedler said that despite the setback on bars, Illinois ended the season well.

“Obviously that wasn’t the kind of bar routine we have every week and how we performed yesterday isn’t how we’ve been preforming the entire year,” she said. “But definitely on the other three events, we couldn’t have ended the season better.”

Illinois was able to bounce back on the final two events starting with beam. 

The Illini scored a 48.975 on the event and had five of their six competitors score a 9.750 or higher.

Weinstein was the only competitor who didn’t hit the 9.750 mark on beam. She had a fall on the event and finished with a 9.000.

The fall didn’t faze Weinstein, who came back and led her team to a 49.200 on floor, 0.200 points above Illinois’ season average. Weinstein scored a 9.900 on the event, which was good enough for a six-way tie for first.

Landrus said the team’s record-setting performance was a good way to end the season.

“It’s just such a great feeling,” Landrus said. “We were able to go in here with our motto that we’ve had all season, which is to keep things simple and go in and do our routines. And we were able to build off the momentum we’ve had this postseason at Big Ten Championships and regionals.”

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