Wheaton co-op off to flying start to season

Wheaton co-op began its quest to win its third state title in a row by picking up three victories during Saturday's quad in Glen Ellyn.

The team pretty much picked up from where it left off at Lincoln-Way East last May, scoring 160.4 points, not too far off from the 161.65 that won state.

Host Glenbard West posted an impressive 145.7 points in what was its first true meet of the season, while Fremd was third with a 129.6 and Addison Trail fourth with a 122.5.

"That's an impressive score and I thought the guys performed really well for our first meet," Wheaton co-op coach Greg Gebhardt said. "The top three guys, for the most part, hit their routines, so to come out and put up a number like that is just impressive."

Last year's all-around state champion, senior David MacDonald, scored a 56.4 in the all-around, winning floor with a 9.3, pommel horse, still rings and vault with a 9.5 on each respectively, and parallel bars with a 9.6.

"I knew we would be pretty good, but a 160 is what we did in the middle of our season last year and this is just the beginning," MacDonald said. "That was a surprise for us."

MacDonald went back to club after the spring season and appeared pretty polished for the first meet of the year.

"Compared to some of the others, I'm still pretty fresh and ready to go," he said. "But I'm still trying to get better, we all are. There's plenty we can do to get better."

Senior Ethan Sansone won pommel horse with a 9.5 and was second overall in the all-around with a 54.1. Junior newcomer Ben Szot was third on parallel bars with an 8.3 and high bar with a 7.7. He posted a 49.9 in the all-around.

"Ben's brand new this year and I thought he did a great job," Gebhardt said. "He went 5 for 6 today. He's really steady. He doesn't do the super high-level stuff that Dave and Ethan do, but he plugs away and is very clean and has a great attitude. He's a nice addition all the way across."

Freshman Max Diab paced the Hilltoppers by placing third in the all-around with a 52.8. Senior Perry Zumbrook added a 46.1.

"With the whole new rules it's a lot more about staying clean," Zumbrook said. "So we won't toss in new tricks until we can almost execute to perfection. We're just trying to stay clean as possible so our team score will increase."

Other notable scores from the Hilltoppers, included 8.5s on floor from Matthew Ideler and on still rings from Joey Mandarino, Mario Sotelo's 8.4 on vault and Eric Samuta's 7.6 on parallel bars.

"We had a very good meet," Hilltoppers coach Frank Novakowski said. "We're approaching things a little bit different, and with our goal being the end of the season we haven't focused on routines here at the beginning as much as normally do. But even with some of the bobbles and things, we still put up a great score and it was good meet for the boys."

Glenbard West was coming off a victory in Friday's Vic Lesch Invite at York.

Fremd was led by all-arounder Doug Leatherman's 42.8. Cole Patton added an 8.8 on floor, Eric Barnd had a 7.3 on pommel horse and Sam Yim swung to a 7.8 on parallel bars.

Addison Trail counted on Marco Martinez's 38.2 and Akash Patel's 37.8 in the all-around, but specialists accounted for the Blazers' top score in four events, including Elias Hernandez's 7.8 on floor, Sal Palazzolo's 7.8 on still rings, Alfredo Torres' 8.2 on vault and Anthony Gamino's 6.9 on pommel horse.

West Chicago's Jacob Kurian scored a 42.4 in his debut meet for the Wildcats.