Palatine looking for more
This just in: Palatine is good.
The Pirates' boys gymnastics team took its third straight Mid-Suburban League championship with a 156.8 while senior Matt Eckardt won the all-around title Friday night at Buffalo Grove.
Eckardt won his second straight MSL title on floor and added a first-place finish on parallel bars. Junior Luke Schuster also took home first in rings.
However, Palatine knows it will need to perform better if it hopes to defend its state championship.
"We had a lot of mistakes today that we can fix up," said Eckardt. "We had some inconsistencies. The team overall did just OK."
Schuster added a fifth-place finish on parallel bars and took sixth on pommel horse. Andre Gatorano took second on high bar, third on floor, and fourth on rings and vault for Palatine.
The Pirates also got fifth-place finishes from Danny Weiss (high bar) and David Irsay (pommel) and a sixth finish from Chris Gongora (rings).
Conant was second with a 147.3, with Jon Snyder finishing second all-around with a 52.9. Snyder won high bar with a personal-best 9.45 and consistently came through when he was needed the most.
"He had a great meet," said Cougars coach Paul Kim. "Jon Snyder is a big competitor. He loves gymnastics. He did really well and needs to bring the rest of his team with him."
Snyder took second on floor, rings and p-bar, third on vault and fourth on pommel. Freshman Steve Rink was fourth all-around and took third in both floor and pommel while Clinton Martin finished second on vault.
East champion Prospect finished third with 145.1, led by Chris Mattes' third-place finish in all-around. Mattes scored a 52.45 while breaking his own school record with a 9.75 on pommel.
"I've always been stepping on my dismount and the key was that I stuck it," Mattes said after taking first on pommel.
Mattes won rings (8.4), took third in p-bar and high bar and finished fourth on floor and fifth on vault. Bobby Burger added a personal-best 9.0 on pommel for the Knights.
"Mattes is a trouper," Prospect coach Pat Kivland said. "He's carrying our team."
Fremd scored 133.65 to finish fourth, highlighted by the electric vault from school record-holder Keith English.
"Something felt kind of odd on the horse but I just landed," said English. "I was just so surprised. Then everyone came up to me giving me hugs and high fives. It's a great way to end the meet."
Brandon Trostrud finished sixth on floor, pommel and high bar to take seventh in all-around for the Vikings.
Elk Grove got top-10 performances from Kamil Nytko (vault), Darryl Tan (pommel), Ed Hwang (pommel) and Mike Jachura (p-bars) while finishing fifth with a 129.85.
Steve Dugan finished fourth on p-bar with a personal-best 8.6 and added fifth-place finishes on floor and vault for Buffalo Grove, which finished sixth (127.7).
Barrington (124.45) was seventh with Kellen O'Connor taking fourth on floor. Hoffman Estates was eighth (124.25) and Rolling Meadows used a team effort to finish ninth (121.1).
Rafi Fernandez (floor) and Tim Whelan (pommel) each had sixth-place finishes for Schaumburg, which was tenth with 116.85.
Hersey finished 11th with 112.65 behind John Duchek's season-high 8.9 on vault.