Stevenson seniors excel in home finale
With spring break completed, two of Lake County’s boys gymnastics teams were pushing to prepare for conference and sectional meets Tuesday night at Stevenson.
The host Patriots fell short of their season-high 141 points earlier this spring, but they still managed to capture an impressive 136.4 to 114.8 Independent Conference victory over Libertyville on their senior night.
Stevenson (2-1, 1-1) was once again led by its outstanding senior tandem of all-arounders Mike Wilner and Scott Siegel as they really shined in the final home meet of their career.
Wilner showed his flair for the dramatic with a first-place 8.95 average (53.7 points) in the all-around competition to outdistance Libertyville senior Craig Breckenridge (52.1 points) with a second-place average of 8.68.
Siegel was not at 100 percent strength for the dual meet. But he was not too far off the pace with a third-place 8.25 average in the all-around.
“Being a little bit under the weather I don’t think it was my strongest performance, but I think it was a solid meet and I think that in future meets I will perform a little better,” said Siegel, who will attend Illinois next fall. “Tonight was senior night so I was trying to kind of go all-out a little bit and kind of showcase my talent. So on floor I dismounted with a double-full and I was just trying to go big and make my dismounts high and stick everything.”
It was another banner meet for the Illinois-bound Wilner, who took home first place on still rings (9.5), vault (9.2), high bar (9.1) and parallel bars (8.5).
Stevenson has been assigned to the difficult Mundelein sectional in early May, and the defending state champion Patriots will be hard-pressed to make a return trip to the Elite Eight without the benefit of the depth they enjoyed in 2010.
“We’ve been off for awhile and we’re trying some different combinations with our lineup, but I’m very pleased,” said Stevenson coach Mike Farina, whose team scored 25.8 points on vault. “Our top two all-arounders, Scott and Mike, looked pretty good and they’re right on target. We’re trying to get our hit ratio up there and we would like to improve that a little bit.”
Breckenridge was the individual champion on floor exercise with a 9.3 and pommel horse with an 8.8. Breckenridge also captured runner-up honors on vault (9.0), and still rings (8.7).
“It was our first time competing since spring break and Evan (Policht’s) last three events were very strong,” said Libertyville coach Curt Austin, who is in his 16th and final season as Wildcats head coach. “As the meet went on Craig (Breckenridge) got stronger too, but he struggled on parallel bars tonight, which is unusual for him.”
Both Stevenson and Libertyville will be competing in the powerful 16-team Bohl Invitational Friday night at Mundelein. But the Wildcats will be without the services of Breckenridge for that meet.
Siegel placed second on high bar (8.6) and parallel bars (8.2) while Wilner was the runner-up on floor exercise (8.9), and pommel horse (8.5).