Carmel champ at New Trier invite

Carmel Catholic and Stevenson posted their best team scores of the season Saturday at the New Trier girls gymnastics invite in Northfield.

Lindsay Basara of Carmel and Emily Weinstein of Stevenson both set career highs in the all-around, finishing in the top spots.

Carmel captured first place with 146.175. New Trier (145.15) was second, while Stevenson placed third (141.35). Fremd was fifth (138.9), Lake Park sixth (135.075), Glenbard North seventh (134.15), Geneva ninth (130.425) and Maine South tenth (127.9).

"I'm just super excited that they looked clean and confident," Carmel coach Sarah Mikrut Doyle said. "It's something that they can build on and can increase difficulty here and there. But they work so hard on their skills and conditioning. They look solid and confident. We always put pressure on this meet to see where we are going into the break and see what we need to change. For now, just keep what we're doing and stay on course."

Basara, who finished third in the state meet on the floor exercise last year, landed first Saturday with a 9.65. She also earned the top spot in the all-around with a 38.0, seconds on vault (9.7) and beam (9.4), and third on bars (9.25). Last week, Basara was the runner-up in the all-around at the Conant Invite.

"Floor was my best, because I've been really working hard on cleaning up all my landings," Basara said. "I was able to do that and I heard my teammates too. It was probably my best. My skills have stayed the same, but the landings are the big thing for me."

Clare Keane chalked up the top spot on the bars with a 9.5 for the Corsairs. Izzy Kropiwiec placed fourth in the all-around (36.8), third on vault (9.65) and fourth on floor (9.4).

Weinstein had a good meet herself leading the Patriots. But she saw her teammate Jessica Maher go down with a knee injury during her routine on the floor. Weinstein went out there as the next gymnast and posted a 9.6, good for second place.

"I wasn't thinking about it that much, I was feeling so bad since (Jessica) was having such good training," Weinstein said. "Obviously, no one deserves to get hurt. it did make me feel so sad. I just wanted to run over to her. Sometimes, crowding over people doesn't help. But I was mostly focusing, thinking and hoping it's not something terrible. I hope that she will be better. It really didn't make me worry about my routine. I did have some nerves. To me, it gave me some more confidence and I was able to get some encouragement from my teammates."

Then, Stevenson had to move over to vault, where she was able to land one of her best-ever vaults, a Yuchenko tuck full for a top score of 9.775.

"I think it was a lot on adrenaline," Weinstein sad. "We knew that we could finish."

She also ended as the runner-up in the all-around (37.925), fourth on bars (9.225) and beam (9.325).

"I was happy to see them get their highest score this year, when they were experimenting on a few things," Stevenson coach Judy Harwood said of her team. "We put a lot of pressure on ourselves for this meet, because it's during Christmas break and we we're trying things out. It worked pretty well."

Fremd had a good meet but ran into problems on the bars as a team.

"We started out better in this meet," Fremd coach Kacey Kronforst said. "I think the girls were doing good, but fell apart there at the end. It's a great time for a break. It's a good time to work on our basics, work on our form, take some upgrades and come back in two weeks with some cleaned up routines.

Glenbard North's Sarah Ozeki placed fifth on the bars with an 8.925.