By Ricardo Ascencio
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With the men’s gymnastics season closing in on its final stretch, the Hawkeye team is proving to not only be a force to be reckoned with but also to be a program that many should keep their eye on.

The Hawkeyes have just come back from competing in the annual Winter Cup in which seniors Matt Loochtan and Jack Boyle competed in Las Vegas against the best gymnasts the NCAA has to offer.

“It was awesome, competing with all those amazing guys in the Olympic team and the U.S. National Team is just a great experience,” Loochtan said. “This was the second year I did this … all around, I did a lot better.”

Loochtan and Boyle finished 22nd and 24th in the overall competition.

Head coach JD Reive was proud of his athletes, saying that their hard work has paid off with their showing in Las Vegas.

Reive also liked being able to showcase the program on a national stage.

“From a recruiting standpoint, this is crucial. We had incoming freshmen come with us to watch our [program],” he said. “With our gymnasts competing as well as they did, it helps with the politics and the recruiting process it, and it’s great that Iowa is competing in national [events].”

The Winter Cup is just a small step in a long journey.

With strong performances the rest of the regular season and into the postseason, Loochtan, Boyle, and junior Andrew Botto could stamp their ticket onto the U.S. Men’s National Team to compete in Rio de Janeiro in the 2016 Olympics.

The newfound success Iowa has achieved can be a viewed as a bit of a shock for some, given the state of the program not that long ago.

Since being runner-up in the 1998 NCAA Championship, the Hawkeyes went through a long roller-coaster stretch until 2009, when Iowa put the program in Reive’s hands.

Much of the Hawks’ success is can be directly linked to the coaching performance.

Reive has a history of winning. Prior to being hired as the Hawkeye head coach, he worked as an assistant at Stanford, where he helped the Cardinal reach four top-three finishes, including winning the national championship in 2009.

This season is the sixth of Reive’s tenure at Iowa, and he has already guided the Hawkeyes to two top-10 finishes in the NCAA. With his team currently ranked seventh, it seems there will be more success to come.

“We are proud of the team we put together here, and our incoming recruiting class is even better than last year’s,” Reive said.

He is building a powerhouse of a program and with an elite recruiting class coming in, it would probably be wise not to sleep on Iowa men’s gymnastics.