De la Torriente does it again for St. Charles
The name Stephanie de la Torriente has become synonymous with the success of the St. Charles co-op girls gymnastics team.
Two years ago de la Torriente qualified for state in the all-around as a freshman. Last year she helped lead the team to a sectional title and a trip to the state finals.
During Tuesday's Naperville Central regional de la Torriente once again stepped up, this time finishing very strong, winning her final two events - floor exercise and beam - to help St. Charles win the regional with 140.225 points. Wheaton co-op finished relatively close at 137.350.
"I was really glad to be able to finish on those two events because they're my strongest ones," de la Torriente said. "It was a hectic day overall and we didn't have the greatest start."
While de la Torriente may have led the way, the team received strong contributions from many of its gymnasts. Liz Fairweather took second on bars and floor exercise, which helped her finish fourth in the all-around. Brittany Bauer claimed fourth and fifth place on vault and bars respectively, while Danielle Goebbert battled through excruciating pain while competing in all four events which included a fifth-place finish in floor exercise.
"She lost a toenail in warmups but somehow battled through it," Fairweather said. "There was that and then I think some added pressure that we put on ourselves. We realize we're making progress and while we were disappointed with our falls on vault we showed a lot of improvement on bars."
Angie Cronk took top honors on bars to lead Wheaton. The sophomore finished in third place or better in her other three events, which helped her win the all-around title with a 36.575.
"I just wanted to stay tight and stick to my routines," she said. "I did that and never lost my confidence."
Wheaton remains alive for one of the two at-large team qualifiers. The team will have to wait to see what happens today at Glenbard West and Thursday at Oswego to see if its 137.350 is one of the two highest raw team scores that didn't win one of the four regionals.
"We had a couple of bobbles on beam that they weren't happy with which is good because it shows me they want it," Wheaton coach Lee Wood said. "Hopefully, we can get in as an at-large team. We'll work a little extra hard this week and if we get in we'll really put it all out there."
Allie Hetrick posted the fifth best all-around score and was third on vault while teammate Ally Wily was fifth on beam. Both will represent Wheaton in sectional play, regardless if the team qualifies.
Resting during last Friday's Upstate Eight Conference meet paid wonderful dividends for Waubonsie Valley's Danielle Christy, who took third on bars and beam, won the vault with a 9.625 and had the second-highest all-around total with a 35.575.
"I felt 100 percent going into tonight," Christy said. "I didn't feel any added pressure. I just went out to have fun and see what I could do."
Seniors Kirstin McCoy (floor exercise) and Kate Bruno (vault) will see their seasons continue for Naperville Central. Both have an outside shot of picking up an at-large bid in the all-around.
"We'll work out as if they made it in the all-around and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen," Naperville Central coach Glen Reimers said. "The team worked hard. We aired some differences after the Naperville North Invite and we started fresh. They made some changes, I made some changes and they scored higher tonight than they did in the conference meet so we're all happy."