Boy’s Gymnastics: Palatine takes Niles West invite

Updated: March 10, 2012 6:22PM

Although Palatine doesn’t have a Coach Foerch like Highland Park/Deerfield co-op, Naperville North and Niles West, the Pirates still won Saturday morning’s 25th Annual Dick Foerch Gymnastics Invitational at Niles West.

The Pirates finished with 135.150 points, comfortably ahead of runner-up Niles West’s 131.350.

“It was an average meet for us,” Palatine coach Scott Hagel said. “We had some falls that we didn’t have in our first meet and hopefully we clean up those mistakes and are back near 140 next week when we take on Fremd.”

Despite gritting through a minor sprained ankle, Jonah Hinz led the way for Palatine, winning horizontal bar with an 8.8 and pommel horse with an 8.25 while also collecting top honors in the all-around with a 50.15.

“Today was just OK. I fell a lot and missed a requirement on rings,” Hinz said. “We had a bad tendency of falling on our dismounts today, but that’s something we learned from and can fix.”

Palatine’s Matt Lee took second in the all-around with a 42.3, while teammate Mike Jankovec was second on horizontal bar, third on floor and fourth on vault.

Recovery from a fibula fracture has limited Naperville North’s Billy Suta, but it didn’t stop him from winning parallel bars with a 9.1 and still rings with an 8.5. Suta didn’t compete on vault or floor, but used dismounts for the first time in eight weeks.

“I’m not throwing everything on p-bars yet, just focusing on my routine,” he said. “I had a solid performance and my rings set was solid.”

Niles West’s Elijah Bond won vault with an 8.8 and Casey Mahoney-Muno took first on floor with a 9.

“I missed practice all week except for Friday so I actually did my best without practice,” Mahoney-Muno said. “It was probably my best routine so far.”

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