Iowa at Illinois

Recap

The Big Storyline: Two big things happened in this one: Mia Townes competed the Illini’s first 10.0 vault since the rule change—and it was clean enough for a share of the event title—and JerQuavia Henderson added beam and made her all around debut for a cool 39.325. Both teams had a solid night that they’ll be pleased with yet still walk away with some things to fix. Illinois counted a fall on bars, and both exhibition routines included falls. The Illini need to lock down that situation; if they can do that and keep putting up vault totals like this, they’ll be in a good position. For Iowa, floor of all events got weird (see the controversies section below). 

Implications: Michigan State had a great debut this weekend, pushing Illinois back a spot in the conference, which will put pressure on the Illini next week. They don’t have a meet as of now due to the Michigan athletics pause; they’ll want to join a dual to try to step back over the Spartans. Iowa stays at No. 2 in the Big Ten with this number, staying just ahead of Minnesota. The Hawkeyes hosts the Gophers next weekend, and it’s going to be an all-out battle in a rematch of the first Big Ten dual of the season. It looks like we’ll see these two teams fighting to stay just behind Michigan all year, hoping to jump on any missteps from the Wolverines.

Controversies: Lauren Guerin competed her usual full-in, switch side to Popa, front through to double tuck floor routine. it was likely to be in the 9.925 territory, but when her score came in at a 9.625, everyone was confused. After the meet, head coach Larissa Libby posted an explanation to her Twitter, stating there was an element missing that wasn’t taken last week and apologizing to her gymnast for the mistake. Guerin won’t have enough numbers for an NQS until after next week when Iowa is away again, but rest assured her floor supremacy will be alright once she can drop this clunker of a number.