Good enough: Mundelein makes state
Its performance was not as good as it had hoped for, but the Mundelein boys gymnastics team still did well enough to win the eight-team sectional meet hosted by the Mustangs Saturday night with 150.1 points.
Runner-up Highland Park co-op pushed the Mustangs the whole way in taking second place with 148.35 points. That total meant the Giants will advance to the state meet next Friday as an at-large squad, along with Naperville Central.
The third and final at-large berth was earned by another Mundelein sectional team as third-place finisher Glenbrook South scored 144.55 points to knock Conant (143.6) out of the 2011 Elite Eight field.
Buffalo Grove put together a solid performance to place fourth with 142.35 points followed by Glenbrook North (129.9) in fifth, Stevenson (124.65) in sixth, and Libertyville (124.2) in seventh.
Libertyville senior Craig Breckenridge had a great meet to win the all-around competition with an 8.83 average. But Illinois-bound Stevenson senior Mike Wilner did not compete at Mundelein because he was competing in the USGA national meet in California.
Mundelein’s struggles were most noticeable on pommel horse where it scored a 22.75, but the Mustangs were impressive on both vault (27.1), and floor exercise (27.0) to pull out the championship.
“You can probably isolate one routine on every event that sunk us other than floor and vault,” said Mundelein coach Jesse Piland, whose team returns to state for the first time since 2005. “We’ll get another week to work on Scott (Marthinsen’s) routines, and obviously he was very rusty.”
Marthinsen (48.75) placed ninth overall in his first all-around meet in over six weeks due to a sprained wrist. Freshman Colin McCarthy (49.95) led Mundelein’s all-around trio in seventh place while junior teammate Tim Beranek (47.85) placed 10th.
“Only one person on our pommel horse team actually hit, but we finished strong on parallel bars,” Marthinsen said. “After our first event (high bar) we were hyped up. But pommel horse probably killed our morale and it was a downward slope from there.”
Senior Scott Siegel (51.2) earned an at-large berth to state with a fourth-place 8.53 average in the all-around to lead the Patriots without the elite Wilner in the lineup
“They looked good, and they all stepped up,” said Stevenson coach Mike Farina. “Scott (Siegel) was extremely consistent, and did exactly what he had to do. Wilner is at nationals and he deserves to be out there.”
Buffalo Grove was led by senior all-arounder Eugene Blackmon (47.6) in 11th place overall while Lake Zurich all-arounder Matthew Cacciatore (44.05) placed 12th. Libertyville’s Evan Policht (37.75) placed 14th.
“Everybody on vault hit for us tonight and Eugene had his highest scores on vault and parallel bars,” said Buffalo Grove coach Chris Stevens. “Kyle Siebert did well on still rings, and Julian Vasquez did well on floor. (Kyle) Chamberlain did well on vault and floor so we definitely got a lot of guys downstate.”
The top five individuals in each event earned automatic berths to state as Siebert won the still rings crown with an 8.95. Vasquez (9.3) wound up in a three-way tie for first on floor with Siegel and Glenbrook North’s Nate Elfant. Breckenridge rolled to the pommel horse crown with a 9.2.
“It was so nice to see him (Breckenridge) be so consistent and he went six for six today,” said Libertyville coach Curt Austin, who will close out his illustrious career at the state meet. “He got quite a few personal bests today.”
Mundelein freshman Cameron Mueller (8.9) took runner-up honors on still rings while Huntley junior Travis Navarro (9.2) earned a trip to state with a fourth-place tie on vault.
Breckenridge added a first-place 9.35 on vault followed by Blackmon and McCarthy (9.25) in a second-place tie. The official cut-off scores for the state meet will be posted on IHSA.org and the IHSGCA website to decide the remaining at-large qualifiers.