Boys gymnastics: Lyons Twp. slips past Glenbard West to win Silver
Hinsdale Central scored 141.5 points during Friday's West Suburban Conference Silver Division boys gymnastics meet and finished in last place.
The Red Devils had anything but a bad meet. They actually were the best they've been all spring, but the amount of overall talent in the conference this year is simply ridiculous.
Lyons Twp. earned the statement victory, edging defending state champion Glenbard West 159.15 to 157.8.
Only Deerfield has scored higher than a 159.15 this season.
"From my perspective Lyons was the favorite coming in because their lineup is pretty stacked," Hilltoppers coach Frank Novakowski said. "They did what I expected them to do and our boys are going to have to figure some things and rise to the occasion next week."
The Hilltoppers are set to compete in the Lyons sectional. Lyons also held on to edge Glenbard West 10-8 in conference points to win the conference title.
"It was one of our better meets, one of our higher scores, but LT obviously had the better meet," Hilltoppers senior Shea Rudolph said. "I'm still happy we did well and we feel confident going into the sectional. There are still some things we can work on, but we put up a pretty good score tonight and we'll try to go up even more from there."
Shea Rudolph won parallel bars with 9.4. Teammate Alexander Demeris was second with a 9.15. Demeris also was second on high bar and tied teammate Aiden Rudolph and Hinsdale Central's Alex Roca for second on floor while taking second in the all-around. Aiden Rudolph added a fifth-place effort on vault and Coley McArdle did the same on pommel horse.
York took third place with 150.4 points behind all-around efforts from Charlie Cripe, John Gil, Dom Milazzo and Jake Anderson. Milazzo took third on vault while specialist Kelvin Stevens was third on still rings and tied for fourth on parallel bars. Gil tied for fourth on still rings.
"All year our goal was to hit that 150," Cripe said. "There was a lot of competition here and we did decent. It wasn't necessarily our best, but we put forth a lot of effort and hit a lot of our sets so that's all we can ask for."
Downers Grove North was right behind the Dukes with 149.55 points.
It was another big night for Lukas Elisha in the Hinsdale Central gym. Earlier in the spring he won the all-around at the Canino Invite with a 54.8. On Friday he won with a 54.3, and he will aim to reach a 55 for the first time next week at sectionals.
"Coming from club you're definitely more prepared, but you can't slack because there are a lot of talented kids out there," he said. "It just kind of motivates you to keep working hard in the gym. I was really happy with how things went. A lot of my hard work has paid off."
Roca led the Red Devils, winning the vault with a 9.35.
The Lions' Reno Sarussi won still rings, John Quinlan was the floor champion and Nick Perez took home top honors on pommel horse for the conference and conference meet champions.