Jan. 18, 2008

Ill-Minn Notes in PDF Format

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The No. 8 Illinois men's gymnastics team, fresh off its second-place finish at the 2008 Windy City Invitational, will host No. 7 Minnesota on Saturday, Jan. 19, at 7 p.m. at Huff Hall. The event marks Illinois second competition against the Golden Gophers, as Minnesota finished fifth at Windy City. Overall, both teams open their dual schedule on Saturday.

"Minnesota is a good team with a lot of talented gymnasts," head coach Yoshi Hayasaki said about this weekend's matchup. "We saw them already at Windy City, but you never know if they put up all their best routines in, so we are not going to take them lightly. They obviously had more mistakes than we did at Windy City, but we cannot take anything for granted, so we are working hard this week to be prepared for this weekend."

Fans can watch the meet for free through live scoring, available at fightingillini.com and clicking on the men's gymnastics schedule page. Fighting Illini fans also can catch live streaming video of Illinois men's and women's gymnastics once again this season, including Saturday night's men's meet against No. 7 Minnesota at Huff Hall. To view the competition, fans must purchase an Illini All-Access package, which starts at $6.95 a month. The package provides access not only to all live and archived gymnastics events, but also all other audio/visual content on fightingillini.com, including live events and features for football, men's basketball, women's basketball, volleyball and wrestling, plus much more. For more information, or to sign-up for Illini All-Access, visit http://fightingillini.cstv.com/allaccess.

A full recap of the event will be available following the conclusion of the meet, on the official home of Illinois men's gymnastics, fightingillini.com.

LAST TIME THEY MET In their last dual meeting in 2007, the Illini dropped the season opener, falling to Minnesota 207.150-204.750 in Minneapolis. In the loss, Wes Haagensen captured his second all-around title of the season to lead the Illini, while Chad Wiest and Jon Drollinger each took home individual crowns on floor exercise and rings, respectively.

Illinois, as a team, bested the Golden Gophers on three events, including the floor exercise (36.300-35.850), rings (36.150-34.900) and parallel bars (35.250-34.900). Haagensen finished first in the all-around (49.600) for the second straight week and tied for second on parallel bars (8.900). In addition, Drollinger tied his career high of 9.500 on rings. Wiest had a breakout performance as well, tabbing a season-high 9.450 on floor, set a personal best on high bar (8.250) and took third on vault (8.500).

Junior Michael Boyer tied his career high of a 9.200 to finish third on the floor exercise, while sophomore Tyler Yamauchi earned a solid 9.350 on the rings to finish second to Drollinger on the event. Overall, the Illini had six top-three finishes on the night.

WINDY CITY INVITATIONAL RECAP The No. 8 Illini used strong performances on vault, floor and rings to secure their second straight runner-up finish at the 38th Annual Windy City Invite with a team score of 347.350. The Illini once again had stellar performances from the their youngsters to open the season, but it was the efforts of its veterans that proved to be the deciding factor in outshining No. 6 Michigan (third, 344.450), No. 4 Ohio State (fourth, 341.200) and No. 7 Minnesota (fifth, 340.350) in the final team standings.

Individually, the Illini tabbed a total of 14 top-10 finishes, including three event titles being taken home by an Illini gymnast. Chad Wiest, a 2007 All-American on floor exercise, tied for the title on floor with US Senior National Team member David Sender of Stanford with a 15.450. Wiest also charted a tied for eighth-place outing on parallel bars (14.300) and tied for 12th-place finish on vault (15.450). Senior co-captain Tyler Yamauchi took a tied for fifth-place finish on rings (14.550), tied for 10th on floor (14.900) and tied for 15th on vault (15.350) to speak well for the senior class.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE GOPHERS Minnesota opened their first weekend of competition at the 2008 Windy City Invitational, riding the performances of senior Mitchell Mays on the vault and junior Kit Beikmann on the pommel horse. Minnesota finished fifth at the 2008 Windy City Invitational. Mays captured the vault title with a score of 16.600, just ahead of NCAA vault champion David Sender of Stanford. It was the top score awarded in any event at the Windy City Invitational, which featured seven of the nation's top 13 teams, including the entire Big Ten Conference, minus Penn State.

Beikmann scored a 14.900 on pommel horse to take second place behind Illinois' Daniel Ribeiro (15.250). The Gophers, were picked fifth by the coaches in the preseason Big Ten rankings, had other top performances by sophomores Cole Storer and Aaron Fortunato. Storer scored 15.800 to place fifth on vault and 15.050 to take sixth on floor. Fortunato also placed fifth in the all-around competition, totaling 82.300 points.

PRESEASON ALL-BIG TEN SELECTIONS HAAGENSEN AND YAMAUCHI Seniors Wes Haagensen and Tyler Yamauchi received their second straight All-Big Ten preseason selections, announced the conference office on Thursday, Jan. 10. The Illini were picked to finish fourth by the conference coaches as a team in the preseason rankings, while defending NCAA Champion and No. 2-ranked Penn State was chosen as the preseason league favorite. Coming in at second was No. 6-ranked Michigan, while three-time defending Big Ten champion and fourth-ranked Ohio State was picked third, followed by No. 7 Minnesota and No. 9 Iowa rounding out the list.

VETERAN LEADERSHIP In 2008, the Illini are looking once again to be a national contender behind the efforts of seniors All-Big Ten selections Wes Haagensen and Tyler Yamauchi. The Illini upperclassmen, in fact, also has to be one of the best in the country, as it includes fellow All-Americans seniors Ross Bradley and Chris Silcox and junior Chris Lung. Along with the All-America returnees, the Illini feature one of the top senior classes in the country, a contingent that brings with it a total of 11 All-American accolades and a combined two Big Ten event titles, three All-Big Ten selections, eight CGA All-America Scholar Athlete awards and eight Academic All-Big Ten selections.

NEW SCORING SYSTEM Men's collegiate gymnastics has elected to adopt the International Gymnastics Federation's (FIG) "Code of Points" as its new scoring system, beginning in the 2008 season. Previously, the sport had been using a modified version during the 2006 and 2007 seasons, which still put a maximum value of 10 points on each routine. In the newly adopted system, a gymnast's final score will be the sum of his Difficulty and Executing Scores [Explained Below]. The scores for each routine will be open-ended, with most scores earning between 13-16 total points, depending upon the apparatus.

Difficulty Score The Difficulty Score will award gymnasts points for the difficulty and technical content of a routine. Two judges on an A Panel will be responsible for crediting the athletes for connections (two high-level skills that are connected) and for completing element group requirements for an apparatus. The nine most difficult skills and the dismount will account for the Difficulty Score. All skills have a set value and are categorized into six groups, depending upon the difficulty aspects of the element. Connection values can be earned on floor, rings and high bar for an extra 0.100 or 0.200 points.

Execution Score The Execution Score will be decided upon by two to four judges on a B Panel. Beginning with 10 points, deductions for errors, faults in execution and presentation will be made by all judges independently. The Execution Score will be computed by taking a varied average of the B Panel marks. The range of deductions will be from 0.100 points for a small error and 0.800 points for a fall.