Carmel has respectable day at state

Carmel Catholic has a few girls that will be competing in the state finals on Saturday as the Corsairs had some impressive performances in the girls state gymnastics meet preliminaries at Palatine High School on Friday afternoon.

Carmel currently sits in fifth place with a respectable 145.375 after the first day of competition.

Defending champion Glenbard West is the leader (148.85), followed by New Trier (147.325), Maine South (147.25) and Glenbrook South (147). The other teams were DeKalb co-op (144.975), Glenbard East (143.8) and Lincoln-Way East (141.25).

"In a meet like this, we did have a lot of beautiful performances," Carmel coach Sarah Doyle said. "They just expect more out of themselves. This is a kind of meet that will either break you or feel you. You still can do good things with that. I'm proud of them and they are beautiful girls.

"I know right now it hurts and it might take a while, but moving forward I told the girls, 'are you upset or sad or are you gonna say that we're not going to let that happen again.' I think that's what this group will do."

Freshman Clare Keane reached the finals on bars with a 9.425.

"I always wanted it for the team, but getting into the finals I get a chance to do something for them," Keane said. "It was very nerve-racking and I didn't expect there to be that many people. I just really wanted to hit for my team."

Izzy Kropiwiec qualified as the last gymnast on the vault with a 9.575.

"Obviously, it's the team first but I couldn't be where I'm at without the team supporting me," Kropiwiec said. "I definitely think that helped me going through the ups and downs. Just to make the finals again is one of my goals. It feels good but definitely the team is number one."

Lyndsey Basara will also compete Saturday on floor as she qualified with a 9.3.

Carly Trebac of Lake Zurich reached the finals with an impressive recovery on floor (9.225). She had a disappointing dismount which she landed on the gym floor instead of the mat. Trebac got up, got herself composed for the next event being the floor.

"It's very exciting to make it since this is all new to me," Trebac said. "But coming off of beam it wasn't good for me. Just having a good floor routine made me feel really good. Going to floor, I was trying to forget about beam and just stayed focused on floor and performing in front of everyone."

Kristin Fisch of Lake Forest reached the finals on vault (9.65) and beam (9.275).

Maddie Diab of Glenbard West won the all-around (38.55) for the second straight year and Carleigh Pistorius of Maine South was the runner-up with DeKalb's Madison Hickey (38.075).

Pistorius and Diab each had the best vaults of the preliminaries with a 9.8.

Diab also had the best score on bars (9.625) and beam (9.625), while Pistorius had the top score on floor (9.6).