Carmel soars to record score at Lake Forest

Lauren Feely’s eyes lit up when she saw her team’s score after the Carmel Corsairs had completed their final rotation on Saturday night.

What she saw was a school record, and one of the best-ever team scores posted in Illinois girls gymnasts — 153.725.

Carmel captured top honors at the Lake Forest Invitational with flair, while Prairie Ridge finished second with 146.225 and Lake Forest third at 145.1 in the 12-team field.

“That’s massive,” Feely said. “It’s hard to describe it all. It’s amazing, because you put everything together and it all comes together all in one meet.”

The entire Corsairs team spent the holiday break over the last two weeks working out every morning to stay fit and get ready for the start of the new year.

“It was hard to get up in the mornings,” Feely said. “But it all comes together.”

Feely also set a career best all-around score of 39.025 and won all four events, matching her best vault of 9.9 and taking floor exercise (9.8), balance beam (9.675), and bars (9.65).

“I never imagined I could do that before,” said Feely of reaching 39. “I just have to keep working and trying to improve.”

Kristin Mirski finished second in the all-around, tied with Riley Mahoney of Prairie Ridge (38.15). Mirski also placed second on vault (9.875), third on bars (9.425) and third on floor (9.6).

“Our goal from break was to come back even stronger,” Mirski said. “We knew that we had to work on our minor improvements.

“When you’re competing, you have to have a different mindset. What we do in practice, we want to bring out in the meets.”

Carmel’s Jen Zeller was fourth in the all-around (38.1), second on bars (9.5), fourth on vault (9.8) and fifth on beam (9.45). Sarah Cohen-Smith placed second on beam (9.65) and Anna Brandmeier was second on floor (9.7) and fifth on bars (9.375) for the Corsairs.

Carmel was exceptional in all four events. Their scores were: vault 39.3, floor 38.45, beam 38.025 and bars 37.95.

“Going into the year, I knew these girls were capable of a 152, just seeing the level that they have gone to and cleaning things up,” Carmel coach Sarah Doyle said. “Then it was like ‘Wow,’ they can certainly pass that.

“I had to tell the girls that they can go this high. They had no idea because they are a hard-working group.”

Vernon Hills’ Alli Tran finished seventh in the all-around with a 37.2. Her best was vault, with a 9.6.

“I thought this was a preview for the regionals or sectionals,” Tran said. “I have something to look up to for the future meets.”

The host Scouts finished right behind Prairie Ridge and aim to improve before they host the Lake County meet at noon next Saturday.

“We wanted to finish in the top three,” Lake Forest coach Robin Strauss said. “We knew that Prairie Ridge was going to be for real.”