Pressure primes Panthers

No athlete wants to be known as an underachiever, especially when there's an opportunity to finish as one of the year's top girls gymnastics teams.

But throughout the regular season, although the victories piled up, Glenbard North was plagued with inconsistent and often sloppy performances.

Perhaps the Panthers just need the postseason for motivation.

During Monday's Glenbard North regional, the hosts clearly were inspired, beginning strong on vault and finishing nearly as strong on beam, as they tied last season's school record of 148.775 and ran away with the regional title.

Now they will enjoy a week of practice and recuperation before they head to next Monday's Glenbard West sectional, where they will vie to qualify for the state finals.

"You spend a lot of the season telling people that this is the type of team we can be and then they don't perform," Glenbard North coach Edsel Clark said. "It's finally nice to see the girls perform the way I've seen them in practice and glimmers of during the season."

Junior Amber Fox fired up the Panthers from the get-go when she won the vault with a 9.675. She'd finish second on beam and the floor exercise on her way to winning the all-around title.

"We had a talk before (the meet) which gave us more confidence," Fox said. "We'd been sloppy and knew we had to hit. I got off to a good start. That was a really good vault for me. I usually land on my butt, even in warm-ups, but I felt good tonight."

Courageous Glenbard North senior Marissa Bosco might need a sophisticated brace to protect and support the knee she horrifically injured last winter, but the knee responded fine on Monday as Bosco scored a 9.5 on bars and 9.525 on floor exercise to win both events.

Then it was a freshman's turn as Emily Ryan stepped up for the Panthers with a 9.525 on beam to win the event. The Panthers had the top four all-around scores as Ryan, Bosco and Christina Rini followed Fox. The fifth best score went to Addison Trail senior Alyssa Grzegorzewski who qualified for sectional action.

Grzegorzewski was one of five seniors to compete for the Blazers. Unless Jessi Rizza is able to sneak in as an at-large qualifier, Grzegorzewski will be the school's only gymnast whose season will continue.

"These seniors have come a long way and will be a hard team to replace," Addison Trail coach Mike Galfi said. "But they finished on a high note. This was our season high (125.4) and to go up 2 points, that was a big deal for us."

Naperville North finished in second place with a 134.125. Junior Carolyn Filarski will move on to the sectional in every event save for vault while senior Megan McLerran still remains hopeful for an all-around at-large qualifier, and at the very least already earned her way on vault and beam.

"They qualified on the events I thought they would so that wasn't a surprise," Naperville North coach Chris Stanicek said.

Illness knocked out two gymnasts from Wheaton Warrenville South's lineup so coach Maureen Latimer had to make some last minute changes. Christen Saccucci, Maggie Ciesielski, Kelly Smith and Claire Armbrust competed in events that they didn't expect to when they departed for Carol Stream.

"We had to use alternates but they did a great job," Latimer said. "As far as if anyone advanced, everything is up in the air at this point."

Tigers senior Cassidy Peterson, whose 9.175 on bars earned her sixth place, will have to watch the results through Thursday to see if she's fortunate to advance to next Monday's sectional in Glen Ellyn.