Belmonte’s struggles end at Avigliano Invite
Conant’s Bill Belmonte couldn’t wait for the Vic Avigliano Invitational on Saturday at Rolling Meadows.
Belmonte, who is a vault specialist, had been struggling in his past couple of meets. The senior had been over rotating on his layout-Tsuk vault and falling.
So when Belmonte came to the Avigliano Invite, he was hoping to get back to the basics.
“I feel real comfortable in this gym,” said Belmonte, who won the vault at the same meet a year ago. “I liked he way it came out today. I really wanted to redeem myself and I was able to do that today.”
Belmonte, along with Thomas Palm, who was second on the floor, Brian Reedy, who was third in the high bar and Phil Schorsch, who was fourth on the pommel horse, led the Cougars to a fourth-place finish as a team with a 46.00.
The invitational has a unique feature which has each team entering just one gymnast in an event. And that gymnast may only compete in one event.
Wheaton co-op won the team title with a 52.20. Lincoln-Way co-op was second with a 47.25 and Glenbard West was third with a 46.40. Fremd was fifth with a 45.60 and Palatine was sixth with a 45.30.
“The kids did great today,” said Conant assistant coach Mike Opsal, who was stepping in with head coach Paul Kim away at a family wedding. “We had an invite last night (Friday) at Lake Park, so we didn’t have great expectations. But the kids came through very clean.”
Palm also had been struggling on the floor. He nailed his press during the event and it was smooth sailing for him after that.
“My press has been giving me problems,” said Palm, who scored a 9.20 to finish second to Wheaton’s Mark Ciesielski, who had a 9.60. “But once I was able to hit that, it gave me a lot of confidence out there. I was able to finish up real strong.”
Palatine’s Jonah Hinz came away with the high bar title with a 9.10.
“My jam wasn’t as good as I liked it to be,” Hinz said. “I was going too fast on my giants and I shot out a little low. But I still finished up pretty well.”
The Pirates also got strong performances from Matt Lee, who was third on the rings with an 8.60 and Mike Jankovec, who was fifth with a parallel bars with an 8.10.
Fremd’s Quinn Bley may have been the only high school student that was happy to go from a “B” to a “D”. Bley was able to perform a maltese on the parallel bars, which moved his skill from a “B” trick to a high-scoring “D” trick. It gave the senior a 9.00, moving him up nearly a point for the higher skill.
“I was finally able to get my shoulders down like they re supposed to be,” said Bley, who finished second to Wheaton’s Ethan Sansone, who had a 9.30. “I have been working hard on getting this the right way. I have been just able to hit it the last few weeks.”
The Vikings’ C.J. Patton was third on the floor with a 9.00. Patton replaced Bobby Wongkamalasai, who sprained his ankle in practice last Tuesday.
Buffalo Grove’s David Kavalerchik was third on the parallel bars with an 8.80, while Schaumburg’s Chris Stehlin was fourth with an 8.70.
Elk Grove’s Kenji Fukuda just missed winning the pommel horse. The junior had a bit of trouble on his dismount and finished second with an 8.20 to Wheatson’s Danny Heller’s 8.30.
“I was happy with my score but I missed my Russians and my dismount,” Fukuda said. “It gives me something to work on.”
Hoffman Estates’ Kyle Santiago sprained his left ankle on his dismount on the still rings. He finished sixth with an 8.30.