Conant closes out regional foes

Usually, regionals consists of one powerhouse team that could win the meet with their junior varsity team, and three teams trying to get as high of a score as possible in order to advance to sectionals at-large.

But not at Monday night's Conant regional.

Conant led by just 3 points after three events over Prospect, but the Cougars put the meet away by scoring 36.05 points on floor while Prospect managed 34.675. That gave Conant first place with a score of 138.025. Prospect took second with 133.25 points and will have to wait until Friday before learning whether it will also qualify to next Monday's Schaumburg sectional.

But it wasn't easy for the Cougars. On vault, their first event, Monica Solarczyk suffered a leg injury and was taken to the hospital. That meant Kelly Hendricks, who wasn't supposed to do bars, had to do bars. She finished sixth (8.4), one place away from automatically qualifying to sectionals.

"I actually did pretty good," Hendricks said. "I landed both of my vaults. Bars, I think I did pretty good considering I had only one minute to warm up. On beam I had one fall. Floor went really well for me."

Conant coach Laurel Rohrback wasn't surprised the meet was so close.

"Conference (Friday) was definitely an eye-opener," she said. "We looked at this meet for a long time. The girls really stepped up."

"Because of conference we knew they'd be real close to us," said Conant's Cara Cosentino, who won bars (9.375), floor (9.475) and the all-around (36.2)

Prospect's Emily Rossdeutcher won vault (9.425) and beam (8.7).

"I didn't really have a good meet," said Rossdeutcher, who last year won the all-around and two years ago qualified in all four events to sectionals. "I just go out and whatever happens, happens."

Like Hersey, Schaumburg is also getting some quality gymnasts into its program. That helped the Saxons finish third with 126.625 points.

"We had a great conference meet and we felt we had to do the same thing today," said Schaumburg coach Jami Stilling. "This was impressive for our two freshmen, Caitlin Barrett and Brooke Shimon."