Naperville North, Glenbard West put their best foot forward

Their schools might not have headed for home with a girls gymnastics invitational championship, but Naperville North and Glenbard West proved to be extremely strong during Saturday's annual Naperville North Invitational.

Once again it was Palatine (142.224) that took the lengthy bus ride home with a victory, but Naperville North (140.650) and Glenbard West (140.425) came very close to derailing Palatine, the second-place state finisher in 2007, before falling.

"Our goal was to finish in the top three," Hilltoppers coach Carlos Fuentes said. "This was the first time where we had almost our full lineup and we were excited to be there."

It proved to be another great stepping stone for the Hilltoppers, who expect to continue to get better and head toward the postseason as one of the teams to beat in the state.

"We probably were at 90 percent tonight and will only get better," Fuentes said.

Courtney Gonzalez led the way for the Hilltoppers finishing in third place on the vault and beam.

Naperville North's second-place finish was due in great part to Sami Piotrowski. A year after scoring a career-best 38.125 in the all-around in this same invite, the senior came up short in winning the all-around but claimed top honors in vault, bars and floor exercise.

"I think it was a combination of everything just working well," Piotrowski said. "It all seemed to work well and what I can I say? It was a good time."

Her teammates obliged. There was Megan McClerran, who finished with an 8.925 on vault and 9.075 on beam, and Tori Tanaka, who also contributed with 8.675 on bars and 8.825 beam.

Huskies coach Chris Stanicek realizes this Huskies season could be a very special one.

"We need to work on the mental game," he said. "I think we have to get out scores and understand that the mental game is holding us back. If we work on that aspect I think we'll be fine and I think we're where we need to be right now."

Glenbard East struggled among the teams, finished in seventh place (131.025), but coach Jessica Stob was pleased with the team's effort and growth during the holiday break.

"We did pretty well but still had too many falls on beam, which we need to improve on," she said. "We need to add some more skills and improve our scores, but overall this meet went pretty well."

Naperville Central ended up in eighth place but coach Glen Reimers was pleased with what he witnessed with his inexperienced squad.

"Traditionally this hasn't been a good meet for us," he said. "We need to spend a lot of time doing new skills and tricks and we had a long period off so we didn't work a lot of routines."