Wheaton Warrenville co-op defeats Glenbard East
Replacing high-scoring boys gymnasts is nothing new to Wheaton co-op.
They had to do it a couple years ago after all-arounders David MacDonald and Ethan Sansone graduated. Now they're trying to do it again after Ben Szot, Adam DeCrane and Alec Modransky completed high school.
What's helped the co-op is having the ability to evaluate and develop talent so that it's already there to step up when it's most needed.
This season it's sophomores Aiden Moran and Joey DiRienzo, and the duo had a lot to do with the co-op cruising to a 144.3-126.6 victory over Glenbard East on Tuesday evening in Wheaton.
Moran finished third in the all-around with a 45.2 while DiRienzo boosted the team score with his effort on the five events he competed in, including an 8.5 on floor and 8.0 on parallel bars.
"It's more than just two or three people on this team," said Moran, who was on the JV squad until being promoted to the varsity during the state series. "Last year I was meeting people for the first time and it was my first year. Now I'm a lot more involved, I have more responsibilities and leadership as much as I have to get my skills down."
Wheaton co-op already knows it has two talented all-arounders in junior Austin Tate, who took second in the all-around on Tuesday with a 46.2, and Lucas Cooperman, who claimed top honors with a 49.7.
Everyone in the gym was looking up to Cooperman on vault, parallel bars, high bar and especially floor where he scored a 9.5, while Tate had top honors on pommel horse and still rings.
"Cooperman is really good at being a leader and Chase (McLearn) also offers that, and as a junior Austin (Tate) is very mature," Wheaton co-op coach Greg Gebhardt said. "Those guys work really hard, and then with Joey and Aiden, we know they've worked really hard in the off-season and they're ready to do varsity skills so it's exciting to see where those guys are going to be at the end of the year because that's going to tell us where our season goes."
Cooperman knows how things work. While he's been in high school the program has won two state titles and then finished as runner-up a season ago.
"This program does a really good job of bringing gymnasts up, many without any experience at all," he said. "It grows from the bottom here and that's why there's always people to fill spaces, just like there will be next year when seniors like myself graduate."
McClearn, who competed in four events, added to the team total in all but high bar, including a 7.5 on still rings.
It was the first full team meet of the young season for Glenbard East and the Rams kind of surprised first-year coach Wayne Hill.
"I'm extremely pleased with what went on, we did a nice job here," he said. "We still have skills to work on since this was our first meet, and we missed some routines, but we'll get back into the gym and try to fix those problems."
Brothers Matt Le and Marc Le battled each other for bragging rights with Matt, a senior, edging his sophomore brother, 43.2 to 42.0 in the all-around.
"We push each other and often go back and forth," Matt Le said. "Sometimes he'll beat me or I'll beat him, and it only makes us better. We're kind of close on some events, but on floor he's definitely better."
Marc Le's top scores included an 8.3 on floor, 8.1 on parallel bars and 6.9 on high bar, while Matt Le's best were a 7.7 on still rings and 8.6 on vault. Fellow Rams gymnast Avery Roy also had an 8.6 on vault.
"At practice we talked about going for 120 and we scored a lot higher so that was really good," Matt Le said. "We lost a lot of seniors so my brother and I knew we had to pick it up this year so we've worked a lot to prepare for the season to help out the team."