March 20, 2015 CHICAGO - The UIC men's gymnastics team travels to Ann Arbor, Mich. on Saturday (March 21) to take on No. 4 Michigan at Cliff Keen Arena. The meet is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. CT.
The Flames first saw the Wolverines at the Windy City Invitational on Jan. 17. UIC scored competitively against five nationally ranked opponents with a score of 388.400.
"With the ECAC Championship just a week away, we will be using our trip to Michigan to get an extra look at some of our line up options," said head coach Charley Nelson.
Brett Valin tied for fourth-place on vault with Michigan's Stacey Ervin with a score of 14.850.
Jason Gaides also scored a team-high of 14.350 on parallel bars and tallied 81.200 points in the all-around competition.
Gaides is currently tied for ninth nationally with an all-around average of 84.283. Gaides recorded his top-score of 85.000 against Air Force on March 1.
UIC's last competition came on March 8 when the Flames collected 408.250 points. The Flames placed second against No. 3 Stanford (425.800) and Arizona State (397.300).
"We will be taking a few risks this weekend with a couple of guys getting their first look at competition this season and resting a few others," said Nelson. "I expect a great fight from the Flames on Saturday as we get ourselves prepared for the big prize, the ECAC Championship."
This is the Flames' final competition before traveling to West Point to participate in the ECAC Championships (March 27-28).
