Veteran Galo guides Wheaton to win
Julie Galo knows she wants to study business in college but hasn't decided where she'll do it next year.
Most of her girls gymnastics teammates only recently learned what high school would be like.
Galo, fellow senior Sarah Mahoney and junior Laura Hughes were the lone non-freshmen to compete for Wheaton Warrenville co-op during Thursday's DuPage Valley Conference meet against Glenbard North in Wheaton.
The co-op prevailed 129.7 to 122.45 in what was the second meet of the season for both squads.
"This is definitely different from last year when we were all upperclassmen," Galo said. "Now we're such a young team, but (the freshmen) make it a lot of fun. They seem to know what they're doing and we help them whenever we can."
Wheaton Warrenville co-op didn't win a single event, but Galo had the second-best all-around score with a 32.95 and Hughes was third with a 32.05. Both were making their all-around debuts.
"I want to compliment Julie and Laura for both stepping up into all-around roles," Wheaton Warrenville co-op coach Maureen Kermend said. "We had so much depth last year that they never had to do it, but they'll be doing it this season."
Galo is pleased with the new opportunity, as beam becomes her final event.
"Being a captain and a senior this year, I'm happy to do it," she said. "We lost so many girls from last year so a lot of us are being asked to step up."
That includes freshmen Macy Smykal, Jackie Kerth, Jill Horvatin and Maggie O'Hara. Smykal attends Wheaton North, while the other three are at Wheaton Warrenville South.
"They're all pretty close to each other, but each has their strengths," Kermend said. "We're working on getting their skills and routines ready for high school now."
Kerth contributed an 8.85 on bars and 8.5 on vault while Smykal had an 8.55 on floor and team-best 7.6 on beam. Horvatin's top score was an 8.15 on floor and O'Hara's was an 8.35 on floor. Mahoney added an 8 on vault.
The team rested two-event specialist Petrina Chino who battled injuries last season.
Glenbard North relied heavily on senior Allison Wahrman and sophomore transfer Delaney Guy.
Wahrman won bars with a 9.3 and beam with an 8, while Guy took top honors on vault with an 8.9 and floor with a 9.2. Guy also claimed the all-around title with a 34.3.
"We lost a lot of kids. We had 15 gymnasts last year and six were seniors, two went to other sports and another one went to club," Panthers coach Kristin Nordquist said. "But we've got Allison (Wahrman) back and Delaney (Guy) but need some scores around them."
The Panthers only had three girls vault, so that hurt their team score.
"With a full lineup we would've been in the 130s," Nordquist said. "But it's early and we don't want to try to do too much."
Amanda Arendt and Erika Meister also competed as all-arounders for the Panthers. They would've had four all-arounders but Wahrman, a stellar track athlete who will compete at Iowa next year, had no reason to risk injury this early in the season.