Strong start for Naperville Central at Libertyville
All things considered, it was a good start to the boys gymnastics season for visiting Naperville Central and Libertyville on Saturday.
The Redhawks looked sharp in posting a 137.2-125.9 nonconference victory over the short-handed Wildcats in a dual-meet that featured a 35-minute delay at the beginning of the competition due to a fire alarm.
Once the meet got under way, Naperville junior Ryan Durkin showed that he is ready to put together another strong campaign as he rolled to first place in the all-around competition with 50.1 points (8.35 average).
Besides Durkin, Naperville Central (1-0) also got a solid performance from senior transfer student Carl Jungquist, who took second place in the all-around with 44.9 points (7.48 average).
Durkin placed 10th in the state all-around as a sophomore, and Jungquist should be a great addition to the team this spring after not competing in the sport at all last year in Michigan. The Redhawks will miss the presence of senior Keenan Oshiro, who was a state qualifier on high bar last season. Oshiro has chosen not to compete in 2015.
"We did better than I expected on parallel bars, and I was actually happy with pommel horse because three out of our four guys pretty much hit their routines," said Naperville Central coach Glen Reimers, whose team scored 25.4 points in sweeping the top three places on parallel bars. "We still have a lot of room for improvement, but I'm pleased for our first meet."
Durkin's performance featured first-place marks of 9.2 on parallel bars, 8.8 on pommel horse, 8.5 on still rings, 7.1 on high bar and a tie for first place (8.4) with Jungquist on floor exercise.
Jungquist was the vault champion with an 8.7 followed by Durkin (8.1) in second and teammate Joe Bajek (7.9) in third.
"I fell three times (vault, floor, high bar), but it was not too bad for my first meet," said Durkin, who thinks his squad should be much improved from 2014. "Our team is looking amazing this year and we should be doing better than we did last year."
Besides the fact that Libertyville (0-1) will be competing without graduated elite gymnast Alex Pong this season, the Wildcats were also without their top two gymnasts. All-arounders Mark Pickar and Adrian Metcalf were both on college trips.
Despite its depleted lineup, Libertyville put together a solid performance. Ryan Flores placed second on pommel horse with an 8.1. He was a state qualifier on pommel horse last year when the Wildcats reached the Elite Eight team tournament and placed sixth in the state.
Flores (7.0) and Jungquist tied for second place on still rings, while Flores added a second-place 6.2 on high bar. Libertyville's Andrew Jacob and Max Smith tied for third on floor exercise with an 8.2.
"It's kind of nice to see what the other guys have to offer, and hopefully with our two other top guys (Metcalf and Pickar) we're looking at scoring 140 points," said Libertyville coach Josh Cimo, whose team scored 23.9 points on floor exercise. "It's probably one of the strongest starts we've had in a couple of years. Pommel horse was definitely one of our better events, even though we counted two falls."
Naperville Central's Cameron Baumgartner and Libertyville's Alec Ovassapian tied for fourth place on vault with a 7.8. Bajek added a third-place 7.7 on pommel horse.
"We're really going to miss Keenan Oshiro this season, but Ryan (Durkin) is doing very well," said Reimers, who hopes his team can reach the 140-point plateau and beyond this year. "Carl (Jungquist) is a very good addition to the team."
The Wildcats should show huge signs of improvement once all of their pieces are in place and routines start getting worked out.
"We hit what routines we had today, but our routines were sloppy, and we were missing a lot of requirements," said Cimo, whose team trailed 93.8 to 86.7 after four events. "Ryan Flores did a really great job for us today. He's our senior captain. He really hung in there strong, and he was three for four today."