Palatine 2nd; Conant, Fremd go 3-4 at invite

When Conant sophomore Steve Rink stuck the landing of his pommel horse routine Friday night at the sixth annual Ed Raymond boys gymnastics Invite, he was quite sure his score wouldnt make much of an impression.

Needless to say, he was more than a little surprised when his robust 9.0 held up over the course of the event at Conant, earning him first place on the horse and helping pace the Cougars to their second straight third-place finish at the annual invitational.

"I hit my leg on the pommel and I thought for sure I was going to get worse than I got," Rink said. "I guess the judge really liked me."

Conant's score of 145.6 - identical to its 2008 total - was not enough to beat Lincoln-Way (159.35), which eclipsed the 13-team field for a second straight year.

Palatine finished second with 151.3, followed by Conant, Fremd (144.5), Prospect (142) and Libertyville (138.7).

"Every team hopes to have at least one solid horse guy, and Steve's ours," said Cougars coach Randy Smith. "He's usually mid-to-high 8s, but he figured out what was wrong and improved it. And it showed."

Smith admitted Conant still has some catching up to do.

"We know that Palatine and Lincoln-Way are ahead of us, and in conference we're trying to catch Palatine," Smith said. "We haven't had our perfect meet, and I think when we do we're an easy 150-point team. Tonight we were at 145 and had falls all over the place."

Lincoln-Way's Isaac Kruspe (53.85) and Ryan Mars (51.8) finished 1-2, respectively, in the all-around, followed by Prospect senior Joe Napoleon (51.25), Palatine's Andre Gatorano (49.75) and Conant's Anthony Crivolio (49.7).

Napoleon, who took first place on the parallel bars (9.35) and third on still rings (8.8), was less than satisfied with Prospect's overall performance.

"We're still real frustrated about the rings," said Napoleon, noting that the Knights' 19.3 total on rings likely cost them a shot at fourth place. "All season weve been working on rings and p-bars. We know if we hit those two, we do well. We didn't hit rings, and that's what happened."

Fremd's Dante Digangi was the only gymnast to win two individual events. The senior began performing a new vault routine this season and appeared to have perfected it Friday night with a 9.6. His 9.4 score on floor exercise edged Kruspe (9.2).

"It's my first time winning floor in a varsity invite," Digangi said. "And I've been working at vault for a long time now, and I would have been disappointed if anything less would have happened. It was one of my best sets of the season and I felt very confident about it."

Palatine earned second place thanks to top-three finishes from three different gymnasts. Dan Murphy took second (8.8) on pommel horse, Luke Schuster placed third (9.2) on parallel bars and Gatorano was runner-up with a 9.5 on vault.