Boys gymnastics: Glenbard West edges East for District 87 title

Will Lanciloti likes being one of the so-called most used bricks at Glenbard West, but he also recognizes that the Hilltoppers need many bricks to build success.

Building off Lanciloti winning the floor exercise and taking third in the all-around during Thursday's District 87 Meet, the Hilltoppers proved strongest among their district foes with 130.65 points.

Glenbard East placed second with 127 and was followed by Glenbard North's 121.8 and Glenbard South's 49.7. The Raiders were short-handed with just two varsity gymnasts.

"I enjoy doing all-around, it keeps me busy and hard at work," said Lanciloti, who scored a 45 in the all-around. "But without the guys who are not doing all-around we wouldn't have been able to win this meet. They help out a lot."

In a sport where three scores are counted in each event, the Hilltoppers got scoring contributions from seven athletes in Carol Stream, including Ian Jackson, Lucas Jackson (39.5 all-around), Jacob Kowalczyk, Rhodel Pidu, David Wuertzer and Thomas Wuertzer. Among their scores, 14 were among the Top 5.

"We don't have many all-arounders, but everyone has either one really good event or two and that's enough for us to do well," said Pidu, who scored a 7.2 on parallel bars and tied for second on still rings with a 7.7. "We don't have to rely on one person to be an all-arounder. We're all bricks in the wall and we all have a part."

Pidu hit a personal best on rings and knew it.

"I felt like I hit and when I compared myself to the other guys who were scoring high I knew," he said. "Parallel bars was pretty good. And that's what I choose to do, to focus on those two so I can do well on them and that's what our team does and it works out well for us."

Earning the floor title caught the modest Lanciloti a bit by surprise.

"I was pleasantly surprised with the floor," he said. "I was not expecting the floor I got, but all my passes were good."

Glenbard North junior Daniel Honsour won high bar (7.9), still rings (8.5) and vault (9.2) as well as the all-around (50.6).

"It means a lot to me to win it," he said. "I was really happy with how floor went because I had been falling on my first pass for the past couple of weeks and tonight I ended up sticking it so it was a really proud moment."

Mitchell Grafer, Brian Nguyen and Jamie Jacob each contributed scores in multiple events for a Panthers team that's already posting solid numbers around Honsour.

"I definitely think we've gotten in a lot of routines during practice and it definitely showed tonight," Honsour said. "We were just able to stay on top of everything tonight and added a bunch of new skills. I think you can expect to see a lot of improvement from us. We are going to beat some people. We're three weeks into the season and we're already seeing improvements."

Glenbard East sophomore Vaden Srey acknowledged that he didn't have anywhere near his best meet, but that didn't stop him from taking second in the all-around (47.7) and winning parallel bars (8.7) and pommel horse (8.4).

"Tonight was actually pretty rough," he said. "I fell on horse one time and messed up on rings and fell and then fell on high bar, but my parallel bars was pretty strong. I have a pretty strong horse routine this year."

The Rams were strong on floor with Nick Bishop tying for third (8.2), Nicolas Moro (8) placing fifth and Srey getting underscored (7.3). Bishop (39.6) and Moro (37.45) finished fourth and sixth in the all-around. Bishop also tied for second on still rings (7.7).

"I got an 8.5 last meet and got a 7.3 for the exact same thing," Srey said. "But it's just the beginning of the season and I think we can actually be pretty good. We're going to keep getting better."

Julian Reyna was fifth on vault (7.15) and high bar (6.1) and Logan Hess was third on parallel bars (7.4) for the Rams.

Noah Ball (26.9) and Matt Drinane (22.8) led the Raiders.