By Jess Westendorf
The No. 12 Iowa men’s gymnastics team will compete against No. 9 Cal today at 9 p.m. in Berkeley, California, at the Haas Pavilion in an important top-15 matchup.
“We are not going to put on the brakes at all,” junior Dylan Ellsworth said. “We are going to get back in the gym, we are going to push ourselves harder than we did last week and take the time to get better.”
The Hawkeyes are coming off of a 404.100-374.300 win against Illinois-Chicago on Jan. 22. During that meet, 12 Hawkeyes earned 29 season-bests, and the team won every event in dominating fashion.
Ellsworth won titles on rings, vault, parallel bars, and all-around. He earned season bests in all of those events — all-around (80.300), vault (14.650), parallel bars (13.850), and rings (13.700).
Junior Austin Hodges and senior Mark Springett both also had big days for the Hawkeyes against Illinois-Chicago. Hodges took home two titles, on pommel horse (14.000) and high bar (13.850), while recording season bests on both. Springett followed with an event title win on floor with a season best of 14.300.
The impressive performance moved Iowa up in the polls as well. The Hawkeyes are now ranked No. 12 in the Road to Nationals Poll and No. 11 in the Jan. 30 coaches’ poll.
In individual events, Iowa stands tall nationally: No. 7 on parallel bars, No. 8 on vault, and No. 10 on high bar.
Cal has a season record of 1-2. It lost to No. 2 Stanford 418.100-403.150 on Jan. 15, then on Jan.21 placed second above No.19 Washington and just barely fell to Stanford in the Stanford Open.
The Bears have bounced back from the two losses to Stanford, however. They are coming off of a 407.300 win at the SC United Open, beating three top-20 teams, including No. 13 Arizona State, No. 19 Temple, and No. 20 SC United.
“They came in still very motivated to improve upon what we did and correct the details that will take the entire regular season to get really good at,” head coach JD Reive said. “The focus has been there, the determination has been there. They are working hard.”
The Hawkeyes have had a two-week break to prepare for the competition against the Golden Bears. During their break, Reive and his squad wanted to sharpen up and focus on getting better in each event.
Iowa specifically wanted to get better on pommel horse, which is famously one of the hardest events in men’s gymnastics. But the squad stays positive and motivated for the meet and wants to show what the Hawkeyes are made of.
“We are out in Berkeley, which is great,” Reive said. “It’s a different location, and it is going to be a fairly evenly matched competition. Being able to focus within the program, within our team, and putting our work that we are doing on the floor as well as staying consistent will lead to great things happening over time.”