CHICAGO - The UIC men's gymnastics team hosted No. 3 Stanford and Arizona State at the UIC Pavilion on Sunday afternoon. UIC scored 408.250 points and placed second behind the Cardinal. The Flames honored five seniors (Brett Valin, Jason Gaides, Kyle Christiansen, Michael Brackmann and Joshua Soto) in a ceremony following the meet.

"Our five seniors are passionate about the sport of gymnastics, they are passionate about UIC, and they are passionate about what they do and where they are going," said head coach Charley Nelson. "There is no better representatives of our university than guys like that."

The Flames started competition on floor exercise as Jacob Thurber and Jason Gaides tied with a score of 14.000. Gaides collected UIC's top-score on pommel horse recording a 14.200. He also notched a team-best score of 14.550 on rings and recorded a total all-around score of 84.750, which was good for second place.

"Today's competition really showed there is no margin for error with the 'five-up five-down' scoring system, and that was the difference between ASU and UIC today," said Nelson. "To pick up a win against a really solid program like that was great, we went out there and just executed better."

Brett Valin posted an all-around score of 81.100. Valin notched UIC's top-score on high-bar (14.300) and competitive marks on parallel bars (13.600) and vault (14.100). Thurber collected a team-best score of 14.500 on vault, which was good for fourth place.

Senior Michael Brackmann competed on rings and posted a score of 13.100. Teammate Kyle Christiansen turned in a 13.900 on high-bar and claimed an eighth place finish.

The Flames return to action on March 21 when they travel to Michigan to take on the Wolverines inside Cliff Keen Arena.