Geneva wins regional title

It's good to have a couple of really talented seniors, as well as lots of talent behind them.

Geneva didn't have any seniors last year, and combined with injuries, that really hurt the Vikings a season ago.

what a difference a year can make for a girls gymnastics team.

Behind senior Claire Ginsberg's 37.25 and fellow senior Michaela Allen's 35.825 in the all-around, Geneva cruised to victory during Thursday's Geneva regional with a 143.75, easily finishing ahead of runner-up St. Charles co-op's 137.475.

Neither Ginsberg, who was injured, nor Allen, who was also battling injuries but had never been on the team previously, competed during last year's regional.

"We're one of those teams that asks so many to step up, and we had a good meet here," Geneva junior Holly Friedel said. "We hope we can go 5-for-5 in every event next time. We're just trying to get better each time out and that's how we've been all year long."

Friedel's third place effort of a 9.075 on beam was one of many highlights for the Vikings.

In addition to winning the all-around in her final home meet, Ginsberg won vault and floor. She won the all-around at state as a freshman so this was her first step in putting the bookends in closing her high school career in amazing fashion.

"It was a good meet and we made some of the improvements that we had talked about," Geneva junior Lily Chapman said. "But, we still made some errors that we need to fix soon."

St. Charles co-op fell short of advancing to sectionals as a team but junior all-arounders, Emma Grace Redmond-Mattucci and Grace Levita, both advanced individually, finishing second and fourth in the all-around.

"We were hoping that we'd make it as a team because we thought we had the potential," Redmond-Mattucci said. "We did get our highest team score of the year. We couldn't have done much more."

The duo has been side-by-side for more than a dozen years so it's not surprising that the success has followed them.

"It's a tough sport, but we've stuck with it and we're happy to be where we're at," Levita said. "We've been to state before and we'll try to get back there again."

York finished in third place with a 131.5 while Willowbrook was fourth with a 122.175.

Sydney Hill qualified for sectionals on bars and Megan Cronin did the same on vault for the Dukes.

Willowbrook's fine season has been overshadowed despite its growth with a young squad since it often finishes low in the standings. It hasn't scored that high in comparison to most of its opponents, but had made outstanding progress.

"I think our first meet last year and again this one was 105 and then we went up to 122," Willowbrook coach Deanna Zuchowski said. "We've worked really hard and made a lot of progress. We hit 4-of-5 beam routines tonight, which was really unbelievable."