Wheaton co-op perseveres with triumph at Lake Park

Wheaton Warrenville co-op knew it would have to find a way to compete without Lucas Cooperman this spring.

What it didn't know was that it would also have to do it without its top returning all-arounder, Aiden Moran.

While Moran's thumb injury is a huge blow to the team, Wheaton co-op always seems to find a way to persevere. The co-op did it again during Wednesday's DuPage Valley Conference dual meet at Lake Park, cruising past the Lancers 144.7 to 117.7.

While Cooperman is now diving for the University of Minnesota, Moran is stuck sitting on the sidelines with an injury that will likely cost him his junior season.

"That's a hard one because he was our top returning all-arounder," Wheaton co-op coach Greg Gebhardt said. "But the other guys are doing a good job."

Moran was simply warming up in a meet earlier this year and landed on his thumb awkwardly.

"It's one of those things that happens in the sport sometimes," Gebhard said. "It's unfortunate."

Senior Austin Tate is doing what he can to lead his team. He won floor, still rings and high bar, as well as the all-around with a 48.9.

"We're starting to kick the rust off and get in gear," Tate said. "I think it's going to be a pretty good season for us. This was a good meet overall. We saw a lot of (personal records) for a lot of our guys, especially on rings where we hit a 24 for the first time since 2014, so that was an amazing feat."

Other than a fall during his dismount on parallel bars to finish his meet, Tate was arguably at his best.

"Besides parallel bars, I think he PR'd on everything tonight," Gebhardt said. "That was definitely one of Austin's best meets."

While Tate won three events, five Wheaton co-op gymnasts either won an event or shared top honors. Chris Wiper won parallel bars, Trent Hartmann claimed top honors on vault and Andy Mathieu and Joey DiRienzo shared first place on pommel horse.

"We're doing what we can right now," Gebhardt said. "We have to make some progress to make that next jump. There are a lot of really good teams out there."

While the co-op shined on high bar, it continues to struggle on vault, which Gebhardt said has to change.

"Vault is killing us right now," he said "We need to get guys turning tsuks. We really need to get going there."

The overall numbers are down for the Lancers; they only had three competitors on vault and parallel bars.

"We were missing a few guys today so that knocked us down a few points," Lake Park coach Tim Whelan said. "We have hit a 122 earlier this year. We did some good routines, though, and I think we're moving in the right direction."

Highlights for the Lancers included Louie Ranieri scoring an 8.4 on floor to place fourth and Luke Badger earning a 7.4 on high bar to take second. Badger and Ranieri were the only other gymnasts other than Tate to compete in the all-around.

"Louie is getting his skills back on floor and as a state qualifier last year, that's good," Whelan said. "Luke had another awesome high bar day today. He's back to the routine he had at the end of last year and we're still going to try to add some more difficulties to that and p-bars as well."

Ever since freshman year, Badger, a senior, has loved high bar. He qualified for state last May.

"It just stuck with me right away. I get my Adrenalin going and I just love (high bar)," he said. "Right now I'm just grinding every day and trying to keep going. As a team we're going through a lot of injuries and we have a small team with only 20 kids. We're just working hard to try to get better.