York victorious in battle of state's best

On Wednesday night two of the better boys gymnastics teams in the state met for an early-season confrontation in Elmhurst.

Host York, the runner-up in last year's state finals, defeated St. Charles North 154.7-151.3. Both teams are expected to be among the final eight that travel to Barrington in May for the state finals.

Christian Carmona, the defending all-around state champion, claimed top honors in the all-around with a 56.4 to lead the Dukes.

"We're still trying to get in the swing of things, but we scored nearly a 155 with basically two falls on pommel horse, falls on vault and high bar and basically three falls on rings," Carmona said. "We'll see where we're at in the next couple weeks, but this is a nice start."

Carmona won four of the six events, taking top honors in everything save for pommel horse and vault, the latter in which he tied for second place. The younger Carmona, Kyle, took first on pommel horse and sophomore Caleb Strejc finished second on parallel bars.

Senior Bryan Beth led the North Stars, finishing in third place in the all-around with a total of 51.45.

"This was an ambiguous meet for us," Beth said. "We had some good events and some not-so-good ones, but we still maintained and scored a 151."

Beth won vault with a 9.45.

"We're just treating each meet as if it's the state meet, and trying to do well and be consistent," he said.

St. Charles North's Sean Johnston finished in third on floor, still rings and high bar and was pleased in his overall performance except for parallel bars.

"I felt pretty good," he said. "I've been consistent in everything overall and was pretty happy with my events."

Second place proved to be the place to be for Geneva's lone gymnast, Kai Kosog. The senior finished second on parallel bars, high bar, vault and in all-around with a tally of 51.7.

"High bar was clean and parallel bars was good, too," he said. "I did have a fall on horse and missed a giant on rings but didn't drop too much. I just need to keep practicing and working on the kinks a little bit, but the outlook is good and I haven't reached my full potential yet."

Naperville North's Tyler Tylinski and Matt Shelton both competed for the Huskies. Tylinski scored a 37 in the all-around while Shelton performed in three events, which included a 5.7 on parallel bars.