Boys gymnastics: Setting helps Mundelein get comfy with big win
In their own gym and on their own equipment, Mundelein's boys gymnastics team really found its comfort zone Wednesday on senior night.
The Mustangs shattered their previous season-high score of 146.4 by rolling to an impressive 152.7 to 129.8 Independent Conference victory over long-time rival Stevenson in this high-scoring dual meet.
Mundelein (2-0, 2-0) held a 101.0 to 86.5 lead over the Patriots (0-2, 0-1) after four events, and the Mustangs never looked back as they closed out the meet with a spectacular 26.9-point performance on high bar to put themselves among some of the top teams in the state.
The battle for the all-around championship was also a great one as Mundelein junior Tyler Collins nipped elite Stevenson senior Matt Krames 52.2 to 52.0 as both gymnasts posted career-high scores in the meet.
The Mustangs' depth proved to be a bit too much for Stevenson's relatively inexperienced squad as Mundelein got a third-place performance from senior Greg Godellas (51.5 points) in the all-around, along with a fourth-place (49.0 points) from senior all-arounder Yianni Wiechering.
"We definitely earned our highest score this year, and this was by far collectively our best team meet," said Mundelein coach Jesse Piland, whose team also soared to a 27.1 score on floor exercise. "The guys competed as a team as well as they've done all year, and I'm really happy with the effort overall."
Collins' push to first place featured a meet-high 9.5 on high bar as well as a second-place scores on floor exercise (9.4), still rings (8.6), and parallel bars (8.4).
Krames' performance included winning marks of 9.6 on floor, 8.9 on still rings, and 8.7 to close out his night on parallel bars.
Krames is the defending state champ on floor and he placed sixth in the state all-around as a sophomore before taking ninth last spring.
"I'm pretty sure this (129.8) is the best we've done not only this season, but all of last season," said Krames, who is headed to Iowa to participate in cheerleading next fall. "My ultimate goal is to win the (state) all-around, I've just got to work really hard in practice, and I'm not going to give up."
Godellas rolled to the title on pommel horse with a 9.0 while Wiechering took home first place on vault with an 8.5. Collins and Godellas tied for second place on vault with an 8.4.
"We're happy that this score is going to hopefully get us some home-field advantage for sectionals," added Piland, whose team will compete at the Lake Park Invite on Friday. "If we can pull this off (scoring 152.7 points), we've done what we want to do and Tyler (Collins) led us tonight. We know he is going to give us 50 every meet and tonight he gave us even more. And I thought Yianni looked really good too."
Krames had an outstanding high bar routine and dismount for a second-place mark of 9.3. Wiechering posted a second-place 8.0 on pommel horse while Godellas (9.0) placed third on high bar, parallel bars (8.3), and still rings (8.0).
"Hopefully he (Krames) can defend his state championship on floor exercise and his start-value is 10.0 on floor exercise," said second-year Stevenson coach Joe Rogalski, whose team scored 25.0 points on floor. "Over half our team is seniors and we know this is not a state-meet team, but we are going to give it our all and have fun while we're doing it."