Glenbard West's focus on invite shows through

Glenbard West has kicked it up a notch.

The Hilltoppers had their best girls gymnastics meet of the season Saturday, winning the Naperville North Invite with a 140.775, finishing comfortably ahead of runner-up Palatine's 137.2.

"It seems like every year that it's become a trend for us to set our sights on this meet," Glenbard West coach Carlos Fuentes said. "We know there's the two-judge panel and we have to get ready for the state series. We wanted to put our best foot forward and try to show consistency."

Maddie Diab led the Hilltoppers by winning vault, bar, floor and the all-around with a 37.75.

"It's the first meet after (holiday) break and this is where we have our most upgrades," she said. "This is a little preview of what we'll see at the end of the season, and overall it was good, we hit."

For the Hilltoppers, Katherine Hoban added a third-place effort on vault and a fourth-place finish on floor while taking sixth in the all-around with a 34.875. Claire McGurk scored an 8.875 on bars and Alison Oakes was third on floor with a 9.05.

"It was just a great outing by all the girls; outstanding work by all of them," Fuentes said. "And we had a lineup of 10 different athletes competing, and that was the best lineup that I could put together. As a coach you feel great to have that depth and strength in the program."

Palatine settled for second behind a pair of strong all-around efforts as Abby Amato was third with a 35.325 and just ahead of teammate Kara Ure's 35.275.

"It was good to finally be back after break, and we were off for two-and-a-half weeks there," Pirates coach Terry Theobald said. "It makes a difference. We're not in meet mode yet, but we'll come back. We have the talent to be in it at the end, but we just have to put it all together."

Hersey took third behind Mackenzie Kamusz's 35.25. She was also second on floor.

Downers Grove North was fourth, finishing just ahead of Glenbard East, 134.825 to 134.45.

Brooke Stocki paced the Trojans, taking second in the all-around with a 35.65 and winning the beam title with a 9.15.

Veronika Srey led the Rams with a 34.7 in the all-around.

The host Huskies won the battle among Naperville schools. They finished in ninth with a 123.4375 while Naperville Central was 11th with a 118.9 and Neuqua Valley was 12th with a 107.05.

"I think we did really well there," Naperville North coach Chris Stanicek said. "But we still need to work on skills and consistency that we need to put in for pretty much all the events."

Stanicek considered Chloe Tsao's eighth-place finish on floor with an 8.65 to be one of the team's highlights.

"She did a really great job on floor tonight and her beam set was pretty good as well," he said. "We just need to start putting it all together and this is the time of the year we have to start doing it with the state tournament coming up at the end of the month."

The Huskies were also strong on vault with Tsao and Leah Molloy tying for seventh place with an 8.9 apiece.