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By Caroline Medley Today we begin our Big 10 series with the Illinois Fighting Illini! After losing a heavy-hitting class in Heather Foley, Sunny Kato and Giana O’Connor, this may be another rebuilding year for the team. However, they should pick up some steam with the return of Mary Jane Horth, who was injured for most of last season, and the addition of four new freshmen. On vault, the Illini lose Foley and O’Connor’s Yurchenko fulls, but just as they lose no 10.0 start values, they don’t gain any either. Horth, Erin Buchanan, Lizzy LeDuc and Sarah Lyons will all return their fulls. Haylee Roe should also come back with a Yurchenko full, as she was able to upgrade from just a layout during the season last year. Freshmen Rae Balthazor, Lindsay Dwyer and Brittany Jones are all expected to bring fulls to the table, with Balthazor having the best landings of the three. One or more of them may be able to sneak into the lineup with only five veterans returning vaults. The key to scoring well with a lineup of these 9.95 start values will be execution. The focus should be on solid blocks to get better distance and height, tight form in the air and landing as cleanly as possible. Bars will see the departure of both O’Connor and Kato, who were some of the top scorers for Illinois last season. With them gone, the team will need some new leaders to step up and take control of their
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Days until the 2017 National ChampionshipsArchives
July 2017
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