Newcomers carry Glenbard West to regional championship

Last year at this time, Audrey Harrington, Meagan McNamara and Haley Trippel were done competing and Brooklyn Ford and Skylar Oh were still several months away from becoming Glenbard West students.

During Tuesday's Glenbard West regional all five of them played a big role in the Hilltoppers running away with the title with a 143.4.

Harrington finished second in the all-around while also placing in the top five in three events, McNamara took second on vault and third on floor, Ford was second on beam and fourth on bars and floor, Oh was fourth on vault and Trippel earned second place on bars.

That's pretty darn good for their first postseason competition. Their fearless leader Anna Diab certainly noticed while winning all four events and compiling a 37.4 in the all-around herself.

"It just shows when you work hard and put all your effort into it you can help the team," Diab said. "I just tried to tell everybody that it's the same as practice and tried to pump them up and get them excited. I told them you can do this, it's just like practice. You do this every day here and it's no different."

Diab and sophomore Alina Bhagwakar, who took third on bars and beam, are the only two Glenbard West holdovers from last year's state champion team. Diab was a single-event specialist due to injuries, while Bhagwakar filled a similar role and wasn't a varsity gymnast the entire season.

"I can still kind of relate to them because last year I was only on varsity for part of the year and only did one event," Bhagwakar said. "So doing more than one event is new to me on varsity.

"I think we all did really good, especially the freshmen who are completely new to this. We were all motivated to do well and felt good about it since it was a home meet."

Geneva's Olivia Takesue took a break from all-around action for about two weeks to rehabilitate a sprained ankle as best as she could so she'd be ready for the postseason.

That was a wise decision by the junior as she looked good as new, taking fourth place on floor and on beam while taking third in the all-around to advance to next week's sectional.

"It was super nice to compete everything again," she said. "As a team we worked super, super hard. We had a few mistakes today, but overall we definitely deserved to go (to sectionals as a team), I think."

The Vikings will have to wait until the final two regionals are completed to see if their 132.9 points are enough to earn them a sectional berth.

For now Takesue will be joined by junior all-arounder Katie Beitzel and freshman Maura Anderson. Beitzel snagged the fifth and final all-around qualifier, tying St. Charles co-op senior Maddie Kramer with a 31.65.

"I'm just so grateful for my floor routine for pulling me up a little because usually beam is very good for me," Kramer said. "Beam kind of upset me today, but I realized I can't give it all away. This is my last year and I still have some goals to achieve so I'm really excited to get to sectionals."

One of her teammates, junior Sydney Kamin, also is excited, although not fully recovered from an illness that kept her out of Friday's DuKane Conference meet.

"I knew I was going to be able to get through something today no matter how bad it was going to be," she said. "I'm glad I actually got through it, because I had one practice between last Tuesday to yesterday. I couldn't have done any better with as little practice as I've had."

Even with flu-like symptoms still lingering, Kamin tied for fourth place on vault and took fourth in the all-around with a 31.75.

"Just being here I'm proud of myself," she said. "I was really fired up to compete in conference and not being able to really crushed me. I'm glad I was able to make it here."

St. Charles co-op finished in third place with a 124.775.

Fenton was the final team to compete with the Bison scoring a 105.05. Senior Emily Trzmielewski led four Bison all-arounders with a 29.625.