St. Charles' finish floors 'em
There are nice ways to finish gymnastics meets.
And then there are some pretty great ones.
The St. Charles Co-op girls gymnastics experienced a pretty darn good one during Monday's dual meet at Glenbard East on Senior Night. The visitors closed their competition with three consecutive excellent efforts on beam and it helped propel the guests to a 137.85 to 134 victory.
"I think it was one of the better routines I've done this season," said St. Charles Co-op's Stephanie de la Torriente, who won the event with a 9.1. "I just wanted to be able to stick it and help the team."
Her effort came sandwiched between Liz Fairweather's (8.8) and Danielle Goebbert's (9.0).
It's proven to be a strange past five days for the St. Charles Co-op team. It scored just a 135.05 in last Thursday's Tri-Cities triangular, nearly reached 140 again but only earned a fifth-place trophy with a 139.275 in Saturday's Lake Forest Invite, and then on Monday was back under 138.
"It's been tough without school and limited practices," Goebbert said. "We came in with a goal of 140 tonight and came up a little short. We had a rough start, not too terrible, but it kept the score down."
Having Katie Shanel in jeans on the sidelines didn't help either, but the team hopes she'll be back soon and healthy enough to contribute in at least a couple of events by the time postseason play begins.
Although the Rams were on the losing end, senior night proved to be another highlight-filled meet for Glenbard East's Andrea Petruniak. She won vault (9.0), bars (9.05) and floor (9.2) and that gave her enough to claim the all-around (36.25) as well.
Petruniak and fellow seniors Alyssa Magnetta, Elena Beltrame and manager Michelle Terrafino were all recognized for their contributions to the Rams' program.
"It was hard last night realizing we had to come back to school today but each class got better and better knowing we were competing tonight," Petruniak said. "Even though we didn't beat St. Charles we still did better on beam than we did on Saturday."
The Rams also came up only 1.1 short of tying their season-best score of 135.10.
"We did hit more beam tonight and that was nice," Glenbard East coach Jessica Stob said. "Jordan (Hargreaves) hit an 8.7 on floor and that was one of her best scores. She did a new pass and that went well."
But not as well as the encore of the night, which poetically featured Petruniak closing the quiet Monday dual meet with the final home floor exercise of her tremendous high school career.
"I have always loved performing and love my routine, so getting to do it again at home and knowing my sister made up the choreography, it just was special," she said.
The same could be said of her meet-best 9.2 score.