At a gymnastics meet that brought 19 schools to Rolling Meadows High School on Saturday, Fremd distinguished itself among the Mid-Suburban League Schools with a 2nd-place overall finish. Glenbard West took the top spot at the Vic Avigliano Mustang Invitational with 48.55 points.
Every team had only one member complete on each of the six disciplines, with the sum of all scores combined to form the team score. Fremd finished with 47.05 points, followed by Wheaton Co-op in 3rd with 46.7 points.
“This meet does bring out a lot of quality gymnasts,” said Mike Costa, head coach of Rolling Meadows. “A lot of these guys, you’re going to be seeing them later on the season at the state and sectional meets. You get a good idea here of what you can expect moving forward.”
It was the western division of the Mid-Suburban League that fared best, with Hoffman Estates following Fremd in 4th, (44.3 points), Schaumburg in 5th (43.91) points, Palatine in 11th (39.2 points) and Conant in 12th (38.85 points).
The eastern division of the Mid-Suburban League was topped by Buffalo Grove, which finished 8th overall with 41.65 points. The Bison were led by senior Kyle Pollina, who finished 3rd overall in the parallel bars with a score of 8.35.
“He hit his routine very cleanly,” said Buffalo Grove head coach Zach Crandall. “His senior leadership has been great for our team this year, and he did exactly what he needed to again.”
Also contributing for Buffalo Grove were Justin Zych, who finished 3rd in the pommel horse with 7.7 points, and Sasha Varvaruk, who finished 4th in the floor exercise with 8.3 points.
“Our strength is that we have several new members of the varsity team this year due to injuries, and the new sophomores and juniors on varsity are doing a great job,” Crandall said. “Our goal is to win the MSL East for the fourth time in a row.”
Prospect finished 15th overall with 36.95 points.
“We performed well, considering we were missing three of our normal six varsity guys,” said Prospect head coach Randy Smith. “We used this meet to give our under-level guys some experience.”
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Prospect’s Mark Larock was the team’s top performer. He finished 5th overall in the high bar with a score of 6.1.
Rolling Meadows finished 16th overall with 36.9 points.
“It was a tough meet for us — we’re young,” Costa said. “We need to do some more learning and get better.”
Rolling Meadows got strong performance in the floor exercise from Jorynn Meehan, who finished 6th overall with a score of 8.1. Conor Thomas finished 12th in the horizontal bar with a score of 4.4.
“I’ve got a great group of assistants and helpers who make this meet run smoothly,” Costa said. “We really did get to see some great gymnasts here.”