In last Saturday's target meet against No. 9 Minnesota, the No. 8 Michigan men's gymnastics team hit the bull's-eye.

Going all out to win the competition, the Wolverines grabbed the lead after the first rotation and never relinquished it. Michigan finished the meet with a score of 213.80, its highest score of the season while Minnesota scored just 209.15.

Many individuals stood out with the Wolverines earning the high score in four of the six events. Senior Luke Bottke placed first in the floor exercise, his specialty, and senior Drew DiGiore won the vault competition. Freshman Joe Catrambone drew top marks on both the high bar, where he tied senior Gerry Signorelli, and the still rings.

Bottke, Catrambone and Signorelli all had solid nights, despite coming off two days of competition last weekend at the Winter Cup in Las Vegas. To get some rest, Catrambone and Signorelli did not compete in all six events like they usually do.

"(Catrambone) has a little bit of an ankle (injury) bothering him," Michigan coach Kurt Golder said. "He typically (does) more, but it's too early in the year to have a bum ankle. We didn't want him to have to struggle with that, so we're keeping him out of floor and vault. (Signorelli) we were just trying to rest because he did the all-around for two days last weekend. It's all part of the grand plan not to overuse guys, and to keep them fresh as much as we can."

Michigan started the night somewhat shakily on the floor exercise - three gymnasts went out-of-bounds before Bottke stepped up and finished the rotation with a strong routine, scoring 9.45. After the floor exercise, the pommel horse loomed ahead and the team was without sophomore Paul Woodward - its best competitor in the event.

But Saturday, the pommel horse was more like a children's pommel pony for the Wolverines. All six gymnasts competed cleanly on the usually troublesome apparatus, giving the team a huge momentum-boost that carried it through the rest of the meet.

"(Pommel horse) was one event that's been giving us problems," Catrambone said. "We hit 6-for-6 and just sailed through the rest of the meet."

Michigan finished off the evening with two stellar high bar routines from Catrambone and Signorelli. The Cliff Keen Arena crowd, which had seemingly reached its noise limit after Catrambone stuck his landing, became impossibly loud after Signorelli executed his signature release perfectly and stuck his landing as well. That routine won Signorelli the Newt Loken award for the best performance of the night.

The Wolverines who did not compete in Las Vegas added difficulty to their routines, and to Golder's delight, also increased their hit percentage. Even in the routines where gymnasts struggled, they managed to stay on their apparatus and finish instead of falling off.

"(One) thing I'm real happy about is some of the guys who did have some adversity," Michigan coach Kurt Golder said. "(Signorelli) did that skill on (parallel bars) and he landed on his pinky finger. And instead of breaking his finger, he kept the routine going. (Junior) Andrew (Elkind) had some trouble on high bar, and he kept his routine going, finished with a nice, strong dismount that he stuck. Those are really good signs."

Though everyone associated with the team wore a huge grin once the meet had finished, none were ready to accept the competition as a display of their peak performance.

"We still do have plans set up for the rest of the season where we're focusing on certain peak events and meets," Signorelli said. "We're going to use this as a point to build on and keep learning and growing as a team."