Asked about his round at Whispering Creek Golf Club, Reid Worden said, “It started off pretty well.”That’s an understatement.
FORT WAYNE – It wasn’t so much a jubilatory night for the Bishop Dwenger gymnastics team as it was a reminder that there’s still work to be done.
The Saints, defending state champions, won the Concordia Sectional with a commanding score of 109.075 on Thursday. But the Saints know they can do better.
“We had a few falls that we need to clean up, but for the most part they did a good job tonight,” Saints coach Rosemarie Nix said. “It was a bit of a different night with the sectional be changed to a Thursday night from the usual Saturday, and I think they were feeling like, ‘Ah, this is too weird,’ but it’s still about how you compete and do what you do.”
Dwenger junior Katy Linvill won the all-around competition with a 36.1. That included a win in floor exercises with a 9.45 and on uneven bars with a 9.2.
“We have room for improvement. And it’s OK to have room for improvement because we still have regionals (Friday) and then the state finals,” said Linvill, whose team is ranked second in the state, behind only Portage.
Dwenger senior Kaitlyn Coffee won the vault with a 9.45 and junior Alena Chilian tied for first on the balance beam with Northrop’s Nataley Sliger at 9.05.
The Saints weren’t the only team cognizant that improvements are needed, even if they’re going on to regionals. Second-place Carroll, which scored a 103.950, did so despite a problematic number of mistakes on the bars, where they scored 23.7, only the fourth-best score of the meet on that apparatus.
“Our vault, our floor and our beams were right on, pretty much what we always do,” Chargers coach Rosemary Scheele said. “But we totally messed up bars. We had one girl fall and another totally mess up her routine, and that hurt us on bars, but we’re not strong on bars anyway. So we knew going into the beam on our final rotation, we had to do well and they all stuck their routines and I couldn’t have been prouder of them for that.”
Pacing the 15th-ranked Chargers was senior Megan Felger, who took sixth in the all-around at 34.45. Teammate Morgan Moehle, a junior, was eighth with a 34.3.
Grabbing the third and final team slot for the regional at Huntington North was Homestead with a 103.55, edging Northrop.
Homestead senior Megan Eggebrecht placed second in the all-around with a 34.95. Teammate Morgan Hardwick, a junior, was seventh with a 34.4.
