Palatine thrilled with third at state

When Scott Hagel took over as the head coach of boys gymnastics at Palatine in 2001, he hoped to lead the Pirates to the state meet once before he retired.

After surprising many by winning state last year, Palatine returned to the big stage on Friday and scored a 156.25 to add a third place trophy to its rapidly expanding awards case.

"To have two state trophies -- I would have been ecstatic just to get a team to state at one point in my career," Hagel said. "I'm very blessed to be surrounded by the people I have around me."

The Pirates narrowly beat fourth-place Glenbrook South (156.10) and had to endure some late-meet drama, as the Titans challenged a score after the results had been posted. After a ten-minute wait, Palatine broke into cheers when the challenge was denied.

York won the meet with a 163.7, and Lincoln-Way East (161.6) was second.

"I'm always pessimistic so until it was official, I had a hard time getting really excited about it," said Hagel. "I was more nervous tonight than I was a year ago. Last year, we were at the state meet for the first time so there were no expectations. Tonight was just a dog fight the whole time."

The Pirates used a team effort that included five different gymnasts counting as scorers and every participating gymnast producing a quality performance.

"I think there's a lot more pride in this one because this is all of us," said junior Andre Gatorano, whose 9.25 on vault helped Palatine set a season-best 27.9 on the event. "There's not one person on the team that really did not contribute something. Last year was more our seniors and the other teammates didn't have a part. Here, we felt that every single person needed to hit."

With the Pirates trailing Glenbrook South by 1 point through five events, Hagel implored his boys to give everything they had in their final event. Senior Matt Eckardt must have been listening as he scored a meet-high 9.7 on floor to help clinch his team's second straight trophy.

"It's a really good feeling that I've been a part of two teams that have placed top three in state," Eckardt said. "Not many people can say that they've done that. It's a really good feeling to know that I was an integral part of that."

For Eckardt, along with fellow seniors Danny Weiss and Chris Gongora, Friday was the perfect way to end what has been a historic run of success at Palatine.

"It's great to go out like this with everybody jumping around and having the time of our lives," said Weiss. "Everybody says that this is the day that everything comes into play from the past. Well, that's exactly what this is. It's really rewarding to see how far everybody's come and worked to get here."