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Niles West tops Maine East, Maine South
Niles West's Timmy La competes on the pommel horse during a meet at Maine East on March 21. The Wolves won the three-team meet with 121.2 points. | Curtis Lehmkuhl~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 30, 2013 1:46AM
PARK RIDGE — Injuries, illness and absences were a constant Thursday night in a boys gymnastics meet Niles West won handily over Maine East and Maine South.
Niles West finished with 121.2 points despite two of its best gymnasts being hampered by injuries. Junior Paul Dugo (sore shoulder) was held out on still rings — his best event — and Jordan Goldberg also saw limited action. The sophomore hurt his ankle on vault and was subsequently held out of still rings, high bar and parallel bars.
The Hawks and Blue Demons were both without coach Erick Noriega, who Maine East junior Andrew Wint and Maine South junior Richie Teresi said was in the hospital with a high fever.
Thursday night’s score of 121.2 “is definitely where we’re at,” Niles West coach Adrian Batista said. “We had a couple injuries; we had a couple of guys that we watered down a little bit. One of my top guys on rings (Dugo), we had to pull him. But with that, I think a 121 is what we’re looking at” in this stage of the season.
Six different Niles West gymnasts won Thursday night’s individual events. Senior Elijah Bond (8.4) won the floor exercise and was second (8.7) on vault to Dugo (8.8). Junior Ryan Tang (8.0) recorded the high score on pommel horse and junior Ben Nudelman (5.5) won on rings. Niles West senior Michael Kim (8.1) had the meet’s top score on parallel bars and junior Harris Khan (5.9) won on high bar.
Maine South (80.1 points) finished in second, and Maine East was third with 63.9 points.
Maine East junior Long Nguyen, Wint and Teresi each recorded an 8.0 on vault. Those three scores were the highest individual scores recorded by gymnasts from Maine South and Maine East.
“Today, I had a bad start on vault,” Wint said. “I messed up on my first pass, but as the meet kept progressing I started to do better. I think I did pretty good today and, as a team, we did pretty good, too.”
Pick up your local Pioneer Press newspaper on April 4 to read more about the Niles West, Maine South and Maine East boys gymnastics teams.
