Winning soothes Wildcats' pain
There's no arguing that Waubonsie Valley gymnast Kendyl Berger felt a heck of a lot better than Neuqua Valley's Heather Summers and Geneva's Sonja Leonard during Monday's quadrangular meet at Neuqua Valley.
Berger, who was celebrating her Sweet Sixteenth birthday, commemorated the occasion by winning the vault (9.15). It wasn't such a good time for Summers, who had a scary fall on bars and spent the rest of the afternoon lying face down with a large bag of ice on her neck. It was even worse for Leonard, a senior, who broke her left ankle and fractured her right ankle during pre-meet warmups.
Summers might be dealing with some aches and pains for a awhile now, but she and rest of the Wildcats picked up another victory, posting a 138.5 to easily beat surpass runner-up Geneva (135.15) as well as Waubonsie Valley (133.55) and Andrew (125.9).
"We were looking for an all-around meet today and it's tough when you have a fall like that (Summers)," Neuqua Valley coach Mike Kaplan said. "It's awfully tough as a team to come back from that."
Fortunately for the Wildcats, they have a veteran leader like Catherine Miller to rely on in such situations. Seemingly unfazed by Summers' injury, Miller followed it,with a nearly flawless bars routine that registered a 9.05 from the judge, which was good enough for second place.
"I can always count on Catherine to have a routine like that when it's really needed," Kaplan said. "When the pressure is really on that's when she excels and she did a nice job of stepping up."
Miller, who earned an at-large bid to state during her freshman season two years ago, continued her strong performance by closing the meet on beam. After scoring an 8.9 in Saturday's Neuqua Valley Invite, Miller posted a 9.15 to win the event on Monday.
"This wasn't conference or anything so it was more of a no pressure meet for us," Miller said. "We just tried to go hard on our tricks and today we had some falls and some struggles. But we also had a vault today that was awesome, probably the best we had this season, and that's probably what we'll take most out of today."
Other standout efforts for the Wildcats included Ashley Nelson's 9.25 vault and Maddie Strick's 9.05 floor exercise. Both efforts propelled the girls to second place finishes. Strick also tied for third on bars.
Waubonsie Valley received its usual consistent contributions from several of its of gymnasts, including Laura Burns, Jamie Apfel and Brianna Conlin, but competed without standout Danielle Christy who coach Lacy Woulfe opted to keep out to give additional time to recover from injuries. Burns tied for third place on bars with an 8.5.
"Overall the girls have done a nice job but we still need to do some cleaning up with the falls and get rid of some of the extra steps that we're taking," Woulfe said. "Once we do that we'll be able to improve our score."