St. Charles strong enough to beat Glenbard East
The St. Charles co-op girls gymnastics team hopes to finally be at full strength sometime in 2012, but it was still strong enough to beat Glenbard East on Tuesday in a nonconference meet in Lombard.
Junior Andrea Schwartz was the lone all-arounder for the winners, finishing with a 32.75 to help St. Charles co-op claim a 132.85 to 121.9 victory.
“Up to this point we’ve been making a lot of progress, but we weren’t at full strength tonight,” St. Charles coach Amy Lill said. “But this is our last meet until our home meet in January, so we’ll hopefully take some time, go back to the drawing board and get ready for that meet.”
Sophomore all-arounder Sidney Copeland is vacationing, so she was missing from the lineup, while Kaylee Arnold was limited to watered-down routines because of injuries and Kelly Gorniak didn’t vault.
“It’s been stressful because of being injured,” Arnold said. “Hopefully, I’ll have all my stuff together soon and be able to be as strong as I was last year.”
Arnold was still able to win bars with an 8.55 and took third on beam with a 7.7. Ortiz won vault with an 8.8 and was second on floor with an 8.95.
“I did one of my best vaults this year,” Ortiz said. “This is the first year I’ve thrown a tsuk, and I’m happy that I’m sticking it with my chest up. I had been getting scored down because I wasn’t doing it.”
Kathryn Doody and Kristin Sheehan both contributed an 8.5 on vault, Schwartz offered an 8.4 on bars, Andrea Montano took third on bars with a 7.9, and Gorniak was second on beam with a 7.9 and also won the floor with a 9.25.
“Since it’s nonconference we looked at this as another practice meet to get ready for the rest of the season,” Ortiz said. “It’s going to be tough competition in conference and in regionals so we’re training hard so we’re ready.”
Glenbard East continues to make strides, adding skills to its routines.
“Tonight went well,” Rams coach Jessica Bugajsky said. “We added new tricks on floor and improved our score a little bit on bars. Vault was the same as before, so it went nicely, but beam was a little rough. We had a couple falls so that’s what we’ll be working on over Christmas break.”
Jessica Griffin led the Rams with an all-around score of 31.75, while Emma Slinkman followed with a 30.25 and Jamie Gradishar posted a 29.5. Karen Sebby added an 8 on floor and 7.7 on bars and Angela Kerndl had a 6.3 on beam.