After having a rough start to the season, sophomore gymnast Shanthi Teike said the conference meet is a chance for a comeback and to show everyone what MSU is made of.

“We had a rough several meets, and after we started doing pretty well, each day we’re making progress,” she said. “We performed extremely well at Oklahoma last weekend, and that was a boost of confidence for us.”

But MSU will need more than confidence to succeed at the Big Ten meet.

The Spartans will have to rely on senior gymnasts Nicole Argiros and Kelsey Morley for their experience to guide everyone through the long weekend like they’ve done all season.

“Those two are who we’ll look to to help the team get through the competition,” head coach Kathie Klages said. “It’s a very long meet … so we’re going to look to those seniors that have been through it before to really help the younger ones understand how it’s going to work and what to expect.”

As the only two competing seniors, Argiros and Morley successfully have led MSU to some of its highest season scores, winning their individual events. In addition to their performances, the two have narrowed the team’s focus to perfecting details and always creating a positive atmosphere.

“Everyone on this team — we have each other’s backs, and we’re like a family; we’re sisters,” Argiros said. “It’s not just me and Kelsey leading this team. It’s everyone coming together at the right time and making it happen.”

Including MSU, the Big Ten only has seven schools with gymnastics programs — Michigan, Penn State, Iowa, Ohio State, Illinois and Minnesota — narrowing the competition down.

Given this season’s obstacles, Klages partially has altered her expectations for the conference meet, focusing on hitting routines and having respectable performances. In past years, she said the Big Ten championship seemed up for grabs, but that’s not the feeling this time around.

“Do I think we can win a Big Ten title this year? No, I don’t,” Klages said. “Are we going to do the best job we can on the competition floor to be as competitive as possible? Absolutely.”

Currently, the Spartans are ranked seventh in the conference, which Klages has presented to the team as a positive thing because it has nowhere to go but up.

“We don’t really have anything to lose,” Argiros said. “We’re going to go out there and perform to the best of our ability … and when we have fun, that’s when we get the best results.

“So we just need to go out there and have fun, stay focused and get the job done.”

Regardless of where MSU finishes in the meet, the team has its sights set on earning a high overall score because qualifying for regionals is the ultimate goal.

The other six Big Ten schools are comfortably in the top 36, and the Spartans do not want to be left out.

“We can do the gymnastics; we just need to work on the small details,” Teike said. “If we can put all that together, we have a definite chance of making it to regionals.”