Fremd wins MSL crown; Palatine's Nigam takes all-around

Palatine sophomore Prakash Nigam was considered the favorite to win the all-around title at the Mid-Suburban League boys gymnastics meet on Friday at Prospect High School.

But the way he warmed up, he would have been lucky to win a sophomore title.

Thanks to a long talk from Palatine coach Scott Hagel, Nigam was able to regroup and claim the varsity title with a score of 50.50.

"I just wasn't landing anything in warm-ups," said Nigam, who also won the high bar with a score of 8.00 and tied Buffalo Grove's Tyler Cho for the title on the parallel bars with an 8.50.

"It wasn't coming together so I had a talk with coach Hagel and he told me to settle down," Nigam said. "I did, and I had a pretty good meet."

Hagel said he saw that he needed to calm his young champion down.

"He was a little shaky during warm-ups so we had a talk," Hagel said. "I told him that warm-ups don't determine how you do in the meet. So he was able to shake that off and have a pretty good meet."

With Nigam settled down, he was able to finish well ahead Fremd's Eric Barnd, who was second with a 47.20.

Prospect's Pat Backus was third with a 45.80, Hoffman Estates' Bartosz Widelak was fourth with a 45.25 and Prospect's Mark Larock was fifth with a 45.20.

Larock also overcame some uneasiness to win the vault with a 9.05.

"I had some doubts before I did it," said Larock, who performed a Pike-Tsuk. "But as I was running down the lane, I knew what I had to do and I stuck my landing."

Buffalo Grove's Matt Scislowski had a long wait before he got to ride the pommel horse.

But when he did, he finished tops in the routine with career-best 8.85.

"It was about 2 hours after we warmed up, so I was pretty much going into a cold set," Scislowski said. "I was just thinking about getting up there and having big circles because you can throw any tricks out of them."

Hersey's Eric Williams won the still rings with a score of 8.80.

"My cross was nice and low," Williams said. "I just made sure my head was focused and got in there."

Fremd's Cole Patton got himself and his Viking teammates off to a great start when he won the floor with a 9.10.

"I been practicing a lot and I threw in a few new moves," said Patton, who is a junior. "It just started to hit and it felt real good."

Patton, along with Ryan Roth (third on the event), Dan Classon (sixth) and Barnd were the main reasons that Fremd was able to repeat as the conference champion.

The Vikings scored a 143.30 to finish a full 2 points ahead of second-place Schaumburg (141.30).

Fremd coach Tim Hamman credited his team's depth with its success on Friday.

"This is where we have been all year," Hamman said. "We haven't had our perfect meet yet. But the nice thing about our team is that when we have troubles, we have other guys to pick us up."

The Vikings, who were tied with Schaumburg and Palatine in the MSL West, also claimed the West outright.

"That was one of our goals when we began the season," Hamman said. "It was nice to win both tonight."

Schaumburg, which got strong performances from Anthony Gershman, A.J. Hardin and Hazen Rice had a long wait after the Saxons' first 3 events. When they returned to competition, Schaumburg struggled a bit.

"That delay really hurt us and we lost a little steam," said Schaumburg coach Erik Bostrom. "He had a couple of stumbles on floor and pommel but we finished nicely on the rings."

Hagel, whose Pirates finished third on Friday with a 138.85, said his team made too many mistakes during the meet.

"We had some definite highs and lows," Hagel said. "But the lows were pretty low. We had our lowest scores of the season on the pommel horse."

Hersey, which was led by Williams, Matt Phelps and Will Nicholson, was fourth in the meet with a 136.05.

But that finish was still good enough for the Huskies to grab the MSL East title ahead of Buffalo Grove.

"I thought the guys handled themselves well," said Hersey coach Dustin Berman. "My guys are really proud to win the East."

Hoffman Estates, which was led by Widelak, Anthony Halbisch and Brendan Gorvett, was fifth with a 134.95.

But coach Ryan Brown wasn't concerned with his team's finish.

"We really wanted to use this meet to try some new things for the state meet next week," Brown said. "We did pretty well tonight and hopefully, we can do even better next week."