Fremd finishes 'curse' with MSL triumph
Fremd ended its curse Friday at the Mid-Suburban League boys gymnastics meet at Palatine on Friday.
The Vikings had always found themselves on the short end at the conference meet, with several near misses at winning a league championship.
"We have had some very good teams here," Fremd coach Tim Hamman said. "But there is always a Conant, or Palatine or some other team that has a state-qualifying team."
Not this year, though, as Fremd proved to be the best of the bunch in winning its first MSL title with a score of 136.95. The Vikings are also MSL West Division champs.
"I feel great," Hamman said. "We just hit our sets and stayed clean. And it paid off tonight."
The Vikings got strong performances from Ryan Roth, who was third on floor and fourth on high bar; Eric Barnd, who was fourth on pommel horse and 11th on vault; Daniel Classon, who was sixth on pommel horse, sixth on rings and ninth on parallel bars; Sam Yim, who was sixth on the parallel bars; Dylan DiMaano, who was seventh on high bar and Cole Patton, who was 11th on floor.
In one of the most wide-open MSL meets in recent years, 2.10 points separated the top five teams.
Buffalo Grove was second with a 136.80. The Bison submitted an inquiry early in the meet that would have awarded them two-tenths of a point, but it was turned down by the judges.
"We had some good and some bad today," said Buffalo Grove coach Zach Crandall, whose Bison won the MSL East. "We had the best vault we had all year, and our rings were also very solid. P-bars was rough and that is usually solid for us - and high bar was real rough."
Still, the Bison came up with some great performances. Matt Scislowski won pommel horse with a 8.25. Justin Zyk was fourth and Jeff Burns also performed well on the event. Jake Siebert was second on the rings with an 8.60 and was fifth on the vault, and Tyler Cho was third on the vault, fifth on parallel bars and eighth on the floor.
Schaumburg finished third at 136.00. The Saxons had an opportunity to overtake the leaders on the rings, which was their final event, but faltered a bit down the stretch.
"We started off strong," Schaumburg coach Erik Bostrom said. "We had a couple of bobbles along the way and it took some tenths away that we needed."
Mat Sigler was second on the vault with a 9.10 and hit 8.80 on the floor. Hazen Rice was second on high bar with a 7.05. Jon Gonzalez was fifth on the rings for the Saxons, Pat Pasia finished 10th on pommel horse, and AJ Hardin was fourth on high bar.
Palatine had its best meet of the season to jump up to the No. 4 team spot at 135.85. The Pirates were led by freshman Prakash Nigam, who won the all-around with 49.80; he won high bar (7.45) and rings (8.70).
"This was my best meet," Nigam said. "I was worried about not falling, so I would get the results I needed."
Nigam got support from Brian Pazdioch, who was 10th on pommel horse, Niko Martino, who was 13th on high bar, and Matt Wang, who third on floor and seventh on vault.
"We tried some new things this week in practice and they paid off," Palatine coach Scott Hagel said. "The first time we tried, things usually don't hit that well."
Defending conference champion Conant finished fifth with a 134.85. The Cougars got off to slow start and could never quite recover.
"It was just a bad meet for us overall," Conant coach Mike Opsal said. "We had a lot of little slips here and there and just couldn't put things behind us."
Blake Rossdeutcher led the Cougars with a second-place all-around finish at 47.15. Rossdeutcher was second on parallel bars, third on rings, sixth on high bar and eighth on pommel horse. Zach Prill was fourth on rings and Jon Chang was four on the parallel bars for the Cougars.
Hersey finished sixth at 128.90. The Huskies were led by Jon Phelps, who won the vault with a 9.15, and Angelo Tenerelli, who was sixth in the same event.
Hoffman Estates was seventh with a 128.65. Hawks sophomore Anthony Halbisch won floor exercise with an 8.90 while Avrey Johnson was third on high bar.
Prospect's Max Andryushchenko, who rocked the MSL when he joined the Knights' team a few weeks ago, was unable to compete. Andryushchenko was preparing for the USGA qualifying which begins in a week.
Without Andryushchenko, Prospect was able to score a 127.90. The Knights were led by Ringo LaRock, who won the parallel bars with an 8.45 and was third in the all-around with a 46.15.
"I wanted to hit my Stitz, which was new trick for me," LaRock said. "I just wanted to get off to a fast start."
Elk Grove scored a 116.5 and got a 10th-place finish on pommel horse by Bogdan Koval. Rolling Meadows had a 108.25 and Barrington finished with 105.05.