With mom watching, Waddington helps Palatine to regional title

Palatine's Jocie Waddington was able to follow in her mother's footsteps Wednesday at the Palatine girls' gymnastics regional.

Waddington competed before an overflow crowd, which included her mother, the former Jodi Forsberg, who was a regional all-around champion at Palatine in the 1990s. Waddington added to the family lore when she won the all-around title Wednesday and helped lead the Pirates to a regional title as well.

"Mom competed here and it is great to have my mom here," Waddington said. "It is a lot easier because she went here and coaches me at club. It is very exciting."

Waddington was able to win the all-around title despite not winning a single individual event. She was second on the floor (9.05) and the bars (8.95) and third on the vault (9.225) and beam (9.35) to finish with a 36.575.

Her teammate Alyssa Eckels was second with a 36.15 and Fremd's Kate Vessel was third with a 35.775.

Palatine won the team title rallying to overtake crosstown rival Fremd. The Pirates had a superb beam rotation to finish with a 142.75 to Fremd's 141.525.

Palatine will automatically qualify for next Wednesday's sectional at Schaumburg while Fremd has the highest at-large score with one regional remaining.

Fremd led going into the final rotation and the Vikings appeared to be in the drivers seat, especially since Palatine was able to stay on the beam only 28 percent (10-of-35) in its last seven meets.

The Pirates turned the tables Wednesday, with four of five of their beam participants not falling. Led by Eckels, who had a 9.525, the Pirates scored a season-best 36.725 on the apparatus.

"That is the best I have ever done," Eckels said. "It was really big to have my teammates behind me."

Palatine coach Terry Theobald said that his team used the last week to prepare for regionals.

"Our goal was to qualify here to go to sectionals as a team," Theobald said. "Now it is the next step, but winning is always good."

Fremd, which beat Palatine last week at the Mid-Suburban League meet at Barrington, also competed well.

"We are happy with our performance," Fremd coach Kacey Kronforst said. "We made a lot of improvements on the beam which is something we have been working on."

Fremd did have three different gymnasts win events.

Sam Shirmer, who has done well on the bars all year, connected on her bale handstand for the first time ever and scored a 9.20.

"I have never done that before," Shirmer said. "It has been my goal all season. It felt like my best bars routine ever. I was really happy with that."

Vessel was also happy with her vault that got her on top of the winners stand with a 9.40. So was Kacey Tokunaga, who won the floor with a 9.075.

Maine East's Afroditi Baltsas won the beam with a 9.55. She was also fourth in the all-around with a 35.575 to help lead the Blue Demons with a 123.30.

Buffalo Grove overcame the flu bug to score a 132.75. The Bison will get Leah Oyen and Dagmara Sobolak into the sectionals as individual qualifiers.

Palatine's Elly Nilsen and Fremd's Abby Gallicho also were individual sectional qualifiers.