“We’ve made a lot of improvements in the past three weeks, but there’s still a couple little details we need to work on,” sophomore Gillian Carr said. “So we just need to keep focus on the little things, but the momentum helps (prepare us).”

MSU’s low average likely stems from the team’s struggles on balance beam, something the Spartans continued to focus on leading up to the Illinois meet.

Head coach Kathie Klages said the problems on beam come from the team being mentally unprepared for the meets, so in practice, she has tried to simulate a meet environment. This week, the gymnasts were given only one attempt to perform their routines, with no chance to redo.

“It’s kind of more mental this way, and it really gets you to focus in,” sophomore Sarena Bumbarger said. “You only have one opportunity, one shot, which is different from most sports. And I think that’s where we’ve been struggling … not being able to handle that one chance.”

Bumbarger added that the team has been working on the mental aspect of the sport rather than focusing on physically being able to perform, and she hopes that helps the team moving forward in their competition with Illinois.

The Victory Plank was introduced in 2010 and currently is retained by the Fighting Illini. Still, Klages noted that her team has performed better than usual with the trophy on the line.

“They know that there’s some hardware down there that we’d like to get back home, and I think that helps us stay focused and energized on the competition,” she said.

The Spartans will need all the focus and energy they can get, as they will be fighting an uphill battle. Bumbarger said the fact that Illinois is nationally regarded as a better team than MSU means the gymnasts will have to go above and beyond to make their routines stand out to the judges.

“(It) makes it a little political,” Bumbarger said. “We have to really work out there to give them something to notice.”