Glenbard West carries the day on beam

Alina Bhagwakar executed her beam routine. Audrey Harrington stuck hers. Brooklyn Ford hit hers. And Anna Diab nailed it to finish Saturday's District 87 meet in Lombard to beam Glenbard West to the championship.

The Hilltoppers edged Glenbard East by just 0.65 of point to earn the championship with 145.45 points to the 144.8 scored by the Rams. It was beam that truly set the two squads apart as the Rams had a 34.2 while the Hilltoppers closed the meet brilliantly with an even-37.

"We still have the heart of a champion; we haven't lost that," Hilltoppers coach Carlos Fuentes said. "We graduated athletes, but they still have heart and I thought they showed that today on beam."

Fuentes acknowledged that his gymnasts probably knew it was going to be a close finish.

"We put ourselves under that same kind of pressure ever day at practice," he said. "We start every practice with a 10-minute warm-up on beam and then we'll come back to work on beam two or three times throughout the day. It's what we're accustomed to. You train it and then you'll improve on it."

Ford, a freshman, took second on beam with a 9.3, showing no signs of being a newcomer thrust into a pressure cooker.

"I think that was the highest score I've gotten on beam so far so that was exciting for me," she said. "I felt better than usual but didn't know I would get a higher score but I'm happy I did. I think everybody hit where they needed to in their routines and we all kind of came together. And we like to end strong on beam."

Apparently, she's a quick learner as the Hilltoppers program has made a living on that narrow apparatus.

"We had a slip-up on bars and thought they really came out and executed on beam," Fuentes said. "They knew they had to hit on beam and they did an outstanding job of keeping the tradition, especially on beam, a tenet of our program."

Diab, the all-around champ, contributed 38.15 points, while Bhagwakar and Harrington were clutch on three events. Ford added a bars score in addition to her strong performance on beam, while Breana Gama, Megan McNamara, Skylar Oh and Haley Trippel each added a key score.

"It's really good that everyone is getting better and improving and adding new skills to their routines," Diab said. "I'm really proud of everybody because I can see everybody's improvement from the beginning to now."

Glenbard East got a huge boost with Kali Kartheiser back from injury to compete on bars. Ideally, the Rams hope she'll eventually be back as an all-arounder, but they were pleased to have her in a single event, which she won with a 9.4.

"It feels great," she said. "I could've done better, but I'm happy with the score I got and happy I stuck my dismount, so that's a start. It's one day at a time. I want to try to compete beam next weekend too."

The Rams are far from complacent, recognizing that adding some things to their routines can boost their team score.

Riley Olson has recently unveiled a tuck tsuk vault, Erin Donovan has added a pirouette bail on bars, Rebecca Honig now features a front handspring on beam while Kelsey Donovan showed off a Rudi in her floor routine, to tie Diab for top honors with a 9.6

"That is the best floor routine I think that I have ever done because the Rudi was new and I haven't ended with a double full because you're tired at the end," Kelsey Donovan said. "It felt good. Every pass landed was really nice and the crowd after every pass was getting really loud and made it even better."

Honig was second on vault and third on bars and floor while Kelsey Donovan added a second place effort on bars while taking third on vault. Despite all that it still wasn't quite enough to upend the two-time defending state champs. But that seems to be OK, at least for now.

"We are all friends because we train together and what not," Kelsey Donovan said. "And we all love gymnastics. The competition is pushing us to be better and better and to add stuff and more points, more tenths, anywhere we can."

It's friendly competition with all the kids striving for excellence.

"The majority of the athletes train together in the off-season so it's not that they want to win for their particular school but want to show off their skill and how they've improved since the off-season. That puts a little added pressure on them, some more than others."

Lost in the battle for the title was Glenbard North's strong afternoon in earning a 137.9 behind Sarah Ozeki's 36.65, Katie Wagner's 34.65 and Lily Lewardowski's 30.55 in the all-around and Brooklyn McQuillian's 8.3 on beam.

"That was my highest all-around score of the season," Ozeki said. "My new full dismount on bars has helped a lot. We have a really good group of girls, but our lineup is pretty small. We're trying to get our scores up through those little details that maybe others don't pay attention to as much. They'll help us in the long run."

A short-handed Glenbard South squad had a 63.6 with Jensen Moloney and Katie Weiss competing as all-arounders.