For many reasons, Schaumburg has plenty of depth this season. One of the main reasons is health.
“It’s nice to have the team healthy and not have to worry about any injuries, which we were plagued with last year at the beginning of the year,” Schaumburg senior Brooke Shimon said. “It’s nice just to be healthy, knock on wood, and just do our best and see where it can take us.”
On Dec. 28, the Saxons added to their success by winning the John Brinkworth Memorial Invitational at Maine West.
The invite allows each team just three competitors per event, one of them an all-arounder, and specialists cannot do more than two events.
The Saxons collected 106.45 points, an average routine score of 8.87, with Prospect (102.55) and Rolling Meadows (97.15) second and third.
The invite recognizes team event champions rather than individual awards. Team event winners were Schaumburg on floor exercise (27.50) and the uneven parallel bars (27.10), Fenton on vault (26.70) and Prospect on balance beam (26.45).
“For a meet coming back after break over a week -- we’ve had 10 days off here and there that they’re not used to -- I’m impressed how we did. We had some good stuff,” Schaumburg coach Jami Stilling said. “Overall a lot of good came from it, just getting back into competition and having fun, not the stress and the pressure, just kind of enjoying it.”
Shimon, Schaumburg’s all-around entry, had the top total (36.60) with Prospect freshman Gianna Scala (35.50) and Rolling Meadows’ Lauren Cerza (34.15) second and third.
Shimon tied for first on vault (9.2), Ashley Miller and Cailtin Barrett tied for first on uneven bars (9.05) with Shimon third (9.0), Shimon (9.4) and Miller (9.35) finished 1-2 on floor and Shimon (9.0) and Erin Barrett (8.9) were second and third on beam. Adding to the first-place floor score was Erin Barrett’s fifth-place 8.75.
Miller is making progress from her back injury. She had a strong floor routine and the 2010 state finalist on uneven bars made her release move and had a strong routine before falling on her toe front dismount. Caitlin Barrett tried a new vault and Kristen Peterson landed hers.
“It was a pretty good meet, not my best, but it’s just about getting the rust off. It was a team meet so I’m really happy the way we finished. That was the cherry on top of it all,” Shimon said.
“I think that the break just gave us the extra time to put in more skills and difficulty and just get more confident with all of our routines, just bump it up to the next level, so that we can hopefully compete with the top teams and we can make it to state as a team. That’s our goal.”