Boys gymnastics: Glenbard West edges Wheaton North to win second IHSGCA state meet
No. 2-ranked defending state champion Wheaton co-op was going to have its work cut out if it was going to topple No.1 Glenbard West Saturday afternoon at the second annual IHSGCA boys state gymnastics meet hosted by Hoffman Estates.
But the Hilltoppers were not going to be denied the state title as they rolled to first place by a 164.4 to 160.45 margin over Wheaton co-op for the crown. Downers Grove co-op captured the third-place trophy with 152.3 points while Naperville North (143.85 points) placed fifth.
Wheaton senior Jack Ongstad won back-to-back state all-around titles with 56.4 points (9.40 average) followed by Naperville North's Stas Kalabayda (56.25) in second, Glenbard West sophomore Louie Diab (55.9) in third, and Wheaton's Patrick Malone (55.65) in fourth.
The Hilltoppers won their third state title in school history (including IHSA crowns), and coach Carlos Fuentes became only the second coach in state history (along with Addison Trail's Fred Dennis) to coach both boys and girls gymnastics teams to state titles.
"It's a tremendous group of athletes, and most of them have dedicated their entire lives to this sport," said Fuentes, whose team posted the second highest score in school history. "And they all had a team-first attitude to help get this done."
The future is bright for Glenbard West as at least four key gymnasts will be returning next year.
"We had a good meet, we did enough to win, and I'm proud of how we did as a team," said Diab. "I think we did best on floor exercise, and we knew Wheaton was going to be on our tail the entire time."
Wheaton co-op was without injured Joey Slaven, who tied for first place in the state on floor exercise with Ongstad last year.
"We had a really good meet. It wasn't our highest score of the season, but our boys competed really hard," said Wheaton co-op coach Greg Gebhardt. "Our three all-arounders all had good meets, Patrick (Malone) hit 6-for-6, and he ended on vault with a 9.55."
Ongstad is not sure if he will compete in college, but he was happy to end his high school career on a high note.
"I had the exact same score as last year. I fell on pommel horse to start pretty low, and I fought back from that," Ongstad said. "Our team is close, and we have a lot of seniors who are focused on bringing each other up."
Glenbard West's John Mammoser (54.55) placed sixth in the all-around followed by Downers Grove's Jake Mateja (53.95) in seventh, Glenbard West's Brendan Ong (53.35) in eighth, Addison Trail/Willowbrook Co-op's Danny Javier (51.6) in ninth, and Downers Grove's Tomas Radzevicius (51.1) in 10th.
"I'm very pleased. Our eyes were on that third-place since midseason, and we knew we had a chance," said Downers Grove coach Tony Ciezadlo. "Not having Karsen Kras (injured) hurt our depth, but our top three guys came through, and our two all-arounders had a good day."
Addison Trail/Willowbrook (142.9) placed sixth followed by Glenbard North (139.05) in eighth, Lyons (131.05) in ninth, and Fremd (126.85) in 10th.
Naperville North coach Chris Stanicek was happy with his squad.
"We had a decent meet. We had some mishaps along the way, but we recovered from them," Stanicek said. "Stas Kalabayda ended up second in the all-around, and he probably hit his best sets of the year today."
Conant's Sanket Vyas was the pommel horse champion with a 9.65 while Ongstad won parallel bars (9.65), high bar (9.6), and still rings (9.6). Second-place finishers were Diab (9.7 on vault, 9.5 on floor exercise), Mammoser (9.6 on p-horse, 9.4 on p-bars), and Malone (9.55 on high bar).
"We had a lot of sticks on our floor exercise routines," said Fremd coach Jason Brandenburg. "It's not easy to make the state meet, but these guys really fought hard to win our conference and make it through sectionals."