Lancers win third invite

The Lake Park boys gymnastics team made its résumé even more impressive Saturday night by winning the Fred Dennis Invite at Addison Trail.

The Lancers, who had previously knocked off Palatine in the Eagle Invitational and Wheaton co-op and Downers Grove North in the Ralph Krupke Invitational, took care of business Saturday night, edging runner-up St. Charles co-op 150.825-148.750.

"This is our third team invitational win, so that's a pretty good record," Lake Park coach Keith Matune said. "We wanted to post a bigger number than what we did today, but I think it was also very important to beat a team like St. Charles that has scored a 160 and is one of the highest-ranking teams out there."

The Lancers pretty much owned the meet on still rings. Mike Hannigan won the event, Gary Soper finished third and Jesus Soto fourth.

"I thought we had some bright spots, and it's always nice to come out with a win," Matune said. "I thought rings did a great job and parallel bars did an excellent job as well."

Soto finished fourth in the all-around with a 50.725. He also established a new school record in floor exercise with a 9.6, eclipsing the record last set by Andrew Kirschner at the same meet in 2006.

A variety of individual contributions helped the Lancers win.

Andrew Aguayo was fifth on pommel horse, Nathan Bracher was sixth on vault, Tommy Gage was sixth on parallel bars and John Guidotti was eighth on high bar.

"It's especially nice to win at this invite with the history Fred Dennis has meant to boys gymnastics," Matune said. "We're very proud to have our team here to win this meet in the presence of a legend."

Conant finished in fourth place with a 140. Junior Clinton Martin won vault with a 9.4 and teammate Jon Snyder finished right behind him with a 9.35.

"It wasn't going so good in warmups," Martin said. "It worked out so I was happy."

It was a rough evening for Glenbard North, which finished in fifth place with a 139.450. The Panthers top finish was Tyler DeAnda's fourth-place effort on high bar.

"Pretty much every event we had some mistakes on," Glenbard North coach Edsel Clark said. "Nothing really stood out one way or another. Just a blah meet."

Nick Ostapa finished third in all-around to help Addison Trail finish in sixth place. He took second on high bar and parallel bars.

"I had a pretty good night," he said. "Overall, I feel like I'm still improving, but I still see room for improvement."