March 19, 2010
NORMAL, Ill. -
The State of Illinois Classic returns to Normal, Saturday, March 20 when Illinois State hosts Illinois, Illinois-Chicago and Northern Illinois. The meet will be held in Redbird Arena and is set to begin at 5 p.m.
The Illinois Classic marks the Redbirds' final regular-season meet and their last home meet of the 2010 season. So far, the `Birds have posted a 10-6 record on the season. The meet also marks the team's last chance to earn a high team score before the conference championship and regionals.
Head coach Bob Conkling is looking forward to the challenging competition the meet will bring.
"This is going to be a fun meet to watch," Conkling said. "All the schools are doing really well and it's going to be tough competition. When we've faced tough programs like Missouri and Kentucky, the team really stepped-up and put out great routines. The team has been hitting their routines 90 percent of the time during this season and continually improving, so I expect them to do really week Saturday."
In their last meet, ISU took on Kentucky and George Washington in a tri-meet. Kentucky finished first with a team score of 194.650, followed by the Redbirds with a 193.275 and George Washington with a 191.150. Hannah Deutsch and Melissa Mann led the Redbirds on the balance beam and placed second and third in the meet with scores of 9.825 and 9.800, respectively. Tori Sarantakis posted a 9.800 on the vault. Erica Schick earned two second-place titles, on the uneven bars (9.775) and in the all around (38.850).
Conkling has pushed the team for consistency in routines all season, and now is working on perfecting routines and cleaning up errors in the wake of regionals.
"Paying attention to the small details is what gets the high scores," Conkling said. "The team has been working on having clean form and sticking its landings. We've increased the level of difficulty on the vault and changed the line-up to keep improving on the event. I think with regionals approaching, it's encouraging the student-athletes to perform their best."
GoRedbirds.com: Your online source for Illinois State Athletics, tickets, TRC gifts, multimedia, Redbird merchandise, photos and more.
