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Girls Gymnastics: Kaitlyn Daly, Michaela Robert medal at Naperville North Invite
Mary Beth Nolan~For Sun-Times Media
Updated: January 7, 2012 11:33PM
Kaitlyn Daly and Michaela Robert earned Naperville’s only medals at Saturday’s Naperville North Invite, but the two Naperville North gymnasts made their medals count.
Daly won the vault title with a 9.275 score and Robert took second place with a 9.175. Robert also finished fifth in the all-around at 35.05.
“For vault today, I just got the mentality of going in and going hard and not holding back,” Daly, a junior, said. “And so, when you get in that mental state of not letting anything make you hesitate, it helps me be more powerful and be more able to get over the vault and get up, and the landing was nice, too.”
In the team standings, Naperville Central finished fifth with 131.35 points and Naperville North was seventh with 129.4. Twelve teams competed in the meet.
Vanessa Henry’s 8.875 on floor exercise was good enough for a tie for eighth place — the highest finish by a Naperville Central gymnast. Henry tied Huskies competitor Erin Pope on floor and also took 12th in the all-around with a 33.5.
Brittany Mitchell posted the Redhawks’ second-highest individual finish with a 10th-place, 8.875 on vault. The Redhawks made an adjustment midway through the meet to rebound for a nice finish.
“After probably the first two events, we had a little talk, and I thought personally they were being a little timid on the apparatus — they were trying to play it safe,” Naperville Central coach Glen Reimers said. “And we went over, ‘Hey, you can’t play it safe. You play it safe, that’s when you end up falling off and you don’t do what you’re supposed to do.
“So after that, I think they took it to heart and they came out and I thought they did well, and I thought they did well and I told them it’s a different story if you go for something 110 percent and you miss it than if you don’t go for it and you miss it. I won’t be upset if you give it your all and you miss it; that’s fine.”
Coach Chris Stanicek’s Huskies had just the opposite kind of day as the Redhawks. Naperville North got off to a good start but then faded. “There’s definitely things we need to work on and clean up,” Stanicek said. “We really struggled today on beam (30.95, eighth place). We started off great on vault (35.225, second) and obviously we did well with Michaela Robert taking second and Kaitlyn Daly taking first, so that was fantastic, but we’ve got to keep that energy going through the whole meet.
“We got to bars and had a couple mishaps, and then beam was not where we want to be. …I think we’re really where we need to be (but) we’ve just got to work on that focus and getting through the meet.”
The Huskies are mainly comprised of freshmen and sophomores, so they have plenty of seasoning left to gain.
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