Girls Gymnastics: Geneva rolls at home

Gymnasts generally prefer the convenience of competing at home rather than traveling on a bus and using unfamiliar equipment.

Junior Ashley Puff has especially found comfort at home in Geneva after relocating from Minnesota just a couple years ago. One of the team’s top all-arounders during her debut campaign last winter, Puff has developed into the team’s scoring and vocal leader this season.

Puff was back on the awards stand at Thursday’s Geneva regional as she won the all-around with a 36 to help the Vikings earn a 140.750 and outscore local rivals St. Charles co-op (138.3) and Batavia (131.425) as well as Willowbrook (125.475).

Geneva advances to next Wednesday’s Glenbard North sectional.

“We had to set up and everything so there was lot of physical activity before the meet and you could tell we were a little flat once we got to floor,” Geneva coach Kim Hostman said. “We took a full point off because of falls on beam, but we still did very, very well.”

Puff started strong, winning vault with a 9.5 before struggling to only produce an 8.325 on bars. She rebounded to win beam with a 9.225 before having an OK floor routine, taking third with an 8.875.

“Overall things went well,” she said. “We came together as team even though our bar scores weren’t as high as we would’ve liked but still decent. We landed all our vaults but had a few mess-ups overall that hopefully we can make up at sectional.”

Hostman’s lineup featured seven gymnasts playing significant roles as specialists, sandwiched between all-arounders Haley Carroll and Puff.

Contributions from the specialists included Dominique Brognia who won bars with an 8.6 and took second on floor with a 9.050, Megan Beitzel, who contributed a 9.15 on vault, Delaney Wood, who was second on bars with an 8.525, and Claire Scatterday who took second on beam with a 9.

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