Dry spell ends for Schaumburg

Schaumburg has ended a 15-year boys gymnastics drought.

The Saxons had not won the Hawk Invitational in Hoffman Estates since 1999.

That changed Friday when Schaumburg came up with its best meet of the season to claim the title with a score of 139.75.

Schaumburg coach Erik Bostrom remembers well the last time his team won the title. Bostrom was a a junior on that team that went to on win the MSL title and advance to the state finals.

And yes, Bostrom is hoping history repeats itself.

"I am really happy for our kids," Bostrom said. "They have been working real hard and this is the reward for that. Hopefully we can keep up this momentum next week and into the state meet."

Mat Sigler came up big for the Saxons, scoring a season-best 9.20 to win floor exercise.

"I took my time out the tonight and focused better," said Sigler. "It felt real good. I hit all my tricks and my passes were real good too."

Bostrom also said that sophomores AJ Hardin, who was fourth on the floor, third on the vault and second on the high bar and Hazen Rice also gave the Saxons a huge lift.

"They have been competing at the sophomore meets, so it was great to have them back for us," Bostrom said. "They complemented our juniors and seniors real well."

Jon Gonzalez was third on the rings and parallel bars for the Saxons while Alex Hernandez was second on pommel horse. Kyle Reid, Grant Senderak, Jim Conley and Marco Abundiz also came up big for the Saxons.

Conant finished second with a 137.025 behind the all-around performance by Blake Rossdeutcher, who won the title with a 47.025. Rossdeutcher was third on pommel horse and second on rings. He got help from Marcus Williams, who was third on floor, and Zach Prill, who was second on the parallel bars and fourth on rings.

"We competed on Thursday and we were a bit tired," Conant coach Mike Opsal said. "It was not our best meet, but we still were able to score pretty well."

Fremd, which finished third with a 135.535, got a huge effort from freshman Eric Barnd, who won two events. He took top honors on pommel horse with a 7.70, then edged Sigler on vault, scoring a 8.86 to Sigler's 8.85.

"I had a great vault," Barnd said. "I liked my pommel horse as well."

Fremd also got top-five performances from Ryan Roth on the floor, Cole Patton on the vault and Daniel Classon on the parallel bars.

"It was our least clean meet of the year," Fremd coach Tim Hamman said. "We don't have a lot of difficulty in our sets, so being clean is important. We didn't do that tonight."

Hoffman Estates was without Avrey Johnson, who injured his right wrist Thursday in practice. But the Hawks responded by coming up with a season-best 135.35

"With conference coming up next week, we just wanted to hold him out as a precaution," Hoffman Estates coach Ryan Brown said. "So with the pressure off, the kids just went out and had fun tonight. And look what we did."

Brown credited sophomores Connor Sauceda, Nick Smiley and Jett Raol to go with Anthony Halbisch, who was second on the floor, Alan Peralta, who was fifth on the rings, Bartosz Widelak, who was fifth on the parallel bars and third on the high bar, along with all-arounder Andres Cueva-Robles, who won parallel bars with an 8.50.

Freshman Prakash Nigam won high bar and rings to lead Palatine to a 132.25. Nigam scored 7.5 on high bar and 8.50 on rings along with second in the all-around with a 46.65.

"Prakash has come a long way this year," Palatine coach Scott Hagel said. "We made some mistakes today, but hopefully we can clean them up for the conference meet next week."