Northwest suburbs' competitors have high hopes at state
For the second year in a row, the Northwest suburbs Cook will not have a team at the IHSA girls gymnastics state finals this weekend.
Although there will be no teams competing from the Northwest suburbs, eight area schools will be represented by individuals. Fremd leads the area with four individuals. Barrington, Conant and Hoffman Estates have two each, while Maine West, Prospect, Rolling Meadows and Schaumburg each have one gymnast.
The 43rd annual state finals will be held Friday and Saturday at Palatine High School. The team competition, along with preliminary individual qualifying and the all-around title will begin Friday at 2 p.m. The individual finals as well as the completion of team scoring will be Saturday at 2:15 p.m.
"It is great and exciting for the girls who qualified," Fremd coach Kacey Kronforst said. "Three of our girls are seniors. It is a great opportunity to show everyone what they've got. "
The top five finishers in each event from each of the four sectionals qualified for the state finals. The next 12 scores from all of the sectionals were then invited to compete as well. The wait for those final cutoff scores was tough Kronforst said.
"Some of them made it at as at-large competitors," Kronforst said. "So it was a nail-biter for them until they got the word that they were in. They are all trying to focus on details so they can put their best foot forward."
Schaumburg's Alexis Rothmeyer and Hoffman Estates' Elyssa Wuerffel are both freshmen and have advanced to the all-around finals which will be competed on Friday.
Rothmeyer automatically advanced by finishing second at the Conant sectional last week. Her score of 37.05 tied for fourth in the best all-around scores posted at the sectionals. Wuerfell, who competed in the same sectional, was an at-large qualifier.
They will be joined in that field of 32 gymnasts by a pair of area gymnasts, Fremd's Gianna Christodoulopoulos, a senior, and Barrington junior Lauren Tenbrunsel. Christodoulopoulos is returning to the all-around finals after finishing 25th last year.
Friday will also have competition will for the four individual events. The top 10 qualifiers in each event will then advance to Saturday's finals.
In the vault, Conant's Danielle Smith, Wuerffel, Christodoulopoulos, and Barrington's Sarah Ruesch will compete.
On the parallel bars it will be Rothmeyer, Fremd's Annika Waller, Sam Shirmer and Christodoulopoulos, Tenbrunsel, Rolling Meadows' Nicole Kane and Prospect's Olivia Tader, who is a sophomore.
Kane was the sectional co-champ with a score of 9.55 which was the second highest score posted at the sectionals. Kane finished third in the state last year in the event. Christodoulopoulos and Waller both qualified last season for the state meet, but failed to make it to the finals.
On the beam, it will be Rothmeyer, Wuerffel, Christodoulopoulos, Tenbrunsel, Conant's Mikaela Kaminski, who is a freshman and Hoffman Estates' Sol Serratos, who is also a freshman. Tenbrunsel qualified for state last year in the event, but failed to make it to the finals.
The area floor qualifiers include Rothmeyer, Smith, Wuerffel, Fremd's Kate Watson, who is a senior, Tenbrunsel and Maine West's Megan Schore. It will be the second consecutive state appearance for Schore, who is a senior.
"There is no holding back now for everyone," Kronforst said.