Girls gymnastics: Lake Zurich’s McHugh soars to all-around title at Conant
The 44th annual Conant Invitational was a great opportunity for area girls gymnastics teams to start becoming more familiar with their routines Saturday in one of the first big meets of the 2024-25 season.
The outcome went down to the final rotation, and Lincoln-Way Co-op pulled away from Carmel Catholic 137.67 to 136.1 for the championship of the 10-team meet.
Lake Park took third place with 134.45 points followed by Warren (132.32) in fourth, Wheaton Co-op (130.97) in fifth, Geneva (128.18) in sixth, and the host Cougars (126.18) in seventh.
Lake Zurich senior Mia McHugh won the all-around competition with 35.7 points (8.93 average) to edge Warren's Nora Werner (35.37) in second, and Geneva's Reese Lackey (34.98) in third.
Carmel was without the services of top all-arounder Alyssah Arends in two of the four events due to ACT obligations. But the Corsairs got solid contributions from all-arounders Karina Gamalski (eighth), Maria Bukowski (11th), and Hollyn Krogman (13th).
"I really love this group. They're so motivated to get better, they feed off of each other and it's easy to come to practice and coach them," said Carmel coach Sarah Mikrut Doyle. "Our goal is to get a little better every meet. This was our best bar performance for us, and they are working to get new skills and improve form to get every tenth they can."
Kara Wilkinson was Wheaton Co-op's top all-arounder in fifth place followed by Warren's Emilia Montes (seventh), Conant's Marissa Shulman (10th), and Lake Park's Elena Heath (12th).
"We had a rough start on bars and the girls did a good job rebounding after that," said Lake Park coach Jake Luketin. "We're missing two girls who are out sick, but we had 11 gymnasts compete today and the girls performed well after bars."
McHugh took home first place on uneven bars (9.35) and vault (9.3) while Carmel's Jocelyn Vauk (8.95) and Lackey tied for first on balance beam. Werner (9.35) nipped Lackey 9.35 to 9.3 for the floor exercise title.
"I struggled at the beginning of the meet with a fall on beam and I kind of grew from there on," said McHugh, whose team was missing four injured gymnasts. "Our goal is just to do the best this team is possible of doing and get the best score possible with the team we have."
Warren was also short-handed as key scorer Camryn Clark was out due to illness. "I thought they did well even though we were missing one of our top varsity girls (Clark)," said Warren coach Mary Kovac. "We're looking forward to a little time off from competing and we'll be back in the new year."
After taking home the third-place trophy from state last year, Wheaton Co-op will really miss the presence of graduated gymnast Hallie Hinckley this season.
"We still have some skills we're developing and putting in routines," said Wheaton Co-op coach Maureen Kermend. "Jacqueline (Phanthavong) did really well on beam (fourth place), and it was nice to see our younger kids contributing today."
With Lackey anchoring the team, Geneva coach Kim Hostman is optimistic heading into 2025.
"I have a super young team, but they're working hard and every meet. I feel like they're progressing," said Hostman. "She (Lackey) has done really well, she's a great leader, she's captain of the team and hopefully she will be a state qualifier again this year."