CHICAGO, Ill. – The No. 3-ranked Illinois men's gymnastics team came in second place at the Windy City Invitational with a score of 404.450 on Saturday evening at the Navy Pier.
"We had some really strong performances today," head coach Daniel Ribeiro said. " It was great to see Tate's (Costa) hard work paying off, winning the all-around and earning a spot at the Winter Cup. Logan (Myers) came back after missing last season and dominated on high bar. Sebastian (Ingersoll) also had a really strong day for us as well. The guys responded really well after a bad parallel bars rotation. There were a lot of really great things that we can look back on from the meet but in the end we fell just short of getting our job done. That won't be sitting well with us this week and we will grow and respond from this."
Illinois suffered a loss to No.2 Michigan (405.150) but defeated Simpson (361.250), NIU (295.400) and Washington (362.750), starting the season 3-1. However, the Illini scored their highest Windy City score since 2017 when they scored a 412.150 and got first place.
The Illini started the meet on rings, where 2023 Still Rings National Champion
Ashton Anaya scored a whopping 14.35. Senior
Sebastian Ingersoll also posted a big score of 13.70 with
Logan Myers scoring a 13.350.
Moving onto vault, the Illini all scored close to each other with Amari Sewell earning a 14.40, Connor McCool scoring a 14.35, Michael Fletcher scoring a 14.3 and Evan Manivong scoring a 14.25.
Tate Costa and Fletcher had a good showing on parallel bars with Fletcher earning a 14.60 and Costa scoring a 13.100.
In his first meet in over a year, Myers posted another big score on high bar with a 14.10 with Ryan Vanichtheeranont and Evan Manivong both securing a 13.70. Costa also scored well, taking a 13.60.
Big Ten Floor Champion McCool started the season with a bang, earning a 14.10. Costa continued his strong night, scoring a 13.80 with Ingersoll taking a 13.40.
Ending the night on pommel horse, Ingersoll had the highest Illinois score with 13.600 with freshman
Brandon Dang taking a 13.550.
Three Illini took titles home, Costa in all-around, scoring a 79.300, McCool on floor and Myers in high bar. Costa's performance earned him a spot at the Winter Cup in Louisville, Ky. from Feb. 23-25.
Illinois will continue competing on the road when they take on Greenville in Greenville, Ill. at 2 p.m. CT.
