Lake Park sees promise in win over Naperville Central
Lake Park had its first girls gymnastics state appearance since 2003 last February.
The Lancers hope to get there again next month, but the challenge appears to be even tougher.
They took a nice step in the right direction on Thursday as they beat Naperville Central, 138.1 to 124.5 in Naperville.
The Lancers are one of 11 teams whose highest score this winter falls between 138.05 and 141.25, which is just below the upper echelon of the eight highest scoring teams in the state. Ultimately, only eight teams will advance to the state finals.
"We're still short two of our girls and we're going a little conservative on some events," Lake Park coach Jake Luketin said. "If we can solidify some things we should get a nice push, a nice jump as we add those scores in."
Junior Kelly Zehnder won the all-around for the Lancers with a 35.0.
"At this point of the season, we just looked at this as a practice meet," she said. "We worked really hard over break and it's starting to pay off now. Hopefully, it'll continue to show more this weekend and later in the month."
The challenge of overcoming the loss of some gymnasts from last season has been challenging for the Lancers, but they like where they're heading.
"It's a bit different because we lost some of our better girls," Zehnder said. "We just keep working hard in practice and stay motivated. We know we're not getting those same high scores from last year, but we like what we're working toward and we're going in the right direction."
Zehnder won the floor with a 9.05 while teammate Julia Kurek took top honors on bars with an 8.7.
Lake Park senior Marissa DiBenedetto was the lone two-event winner, claiming vault with a 9.3 and beam with a 9.2.
"I was happy to see the team do so well on our events, and we still have a lot we're going to add," DiBenedetto said. "We've got some girls coming back to the lineup and should only get better. This is a nice start for us after the break and we should get even stronger."
Meanwhile, Naperville Central is just trying to get healthy enough to compete.
The Redhawks only sent out four all-arounders so all their scores counted.
They still managed to compile a pretty solid score, with Rose Fritz leading the way with an all-around total of 33.5 and Katie Petro right behind her with a 32.6.
Petro was especially strong on beam and floor with an 8.7 on each, while Fritz led the team with an 8.8 on floor.
"Rose looked pretty good today," Naperville Central coach Glen Reimers said. "And Hailey is still fighting a bad back but was able to compete and did pretty well."
The Redhawks also received a nice boost from Joanna Huang, a JV kid who was moved up for this dual. She provided the team with its fourth score on all the events as Madelyn Surin and Natalie Stephens continued to be sidelined with injuries.
"We hope Natalie can do two events on Saturday, but for (Madelyn) she might be out for the rest of the season," Reimers said. "She's got an ankle fracture and we just have to wait and see there."