With a No. 7 national balance beam ranking to its credit, the Illinois State gymnastics team will be looking to transfer some of that success to its vault, bars and floor scores Saturday, when the Redbirds host Illinois at 4 p.m. at Horton Field House.
The Redbirds, 2-0, hope to continue to improve upon past performances, according to head coach Beth Larson.
Theres a lot of excitement coming into this weekend, said Larson. First of all, we have a lot of confidence from last weekend. Second, were excited to be competing against our in-state rival, Illinois. We are excited to come out and put on strong performances for the third week in a row.
Despite a strong showing last weekend against Southeast Missouri State, the Redbirds recognize that the meet versus the Illini presents them with some strong challenges. The Illini are ranked No. 20 overall after scoring 194.925 in a meet against Auburn, Ball State and Northern Illinois on Jan. 17 and are ranked in the top 25 on bars, beam and floor, according to GymInfo National Womens Gymnastics.
This competition will be a head-to-head duel the entire meet, Larson commented. But we are definitely prepared for it, and were ready to go out and be successful.
