Banner day for PR

Prairie Ridge's Molly Sandquist competes Saturday on the balance beam at the IHSA Girls Gymnastics State Meet in Palatine. (Joe Cyganowski - For the Northwest Herald)

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

PALATINE – Jenny Covers’ warm-up session for the vault finals at the IHSA Girls Gymnastics State Meet was somewhat unsettling.

Time after time, the Prairie Ridge junior raced down the runway, launched into her Yurchenko layout, over-rotated and fell on her backside. It did not supply a lot of confidence for the defending state champion in that event.

About 20 minutes later, everything changed.

Covers landed her first vault, then added a full twist on her second attempt and earned a 9.8, wresting the championship from Gurnee Warren’s Kim Gotlund, who scored 9.75 two competitors before Covers. Sensing she had just hit a winner, Covers skipped back toward her teammates and jumped into their arms in celebration.

It was a sign of good things to come for Covers and teammates Molly Sandquist and Taylor Weber in the individual events finals. Covers, who did not repeat as all-around state champion Friday, won the floor exercise with a 9.625, an improvement of .175 over her preliminary score.

Sandquist tied for fifth on balance beam at 9.35 and Weber tied for fifth in floor exercise at 9.4. With all four scores improving, the Wolves almost jumped high enough to take the third-place trophy away from Fremd. Prairie Ridge entered the finals with 145.400 and improved to 145.825, taking fourth place. Carmel won the team title with 147.250, followed by Lyons (146.775) and Fremd (145.925).

“We didn’t do our best yesterday,” Covers said. “Today was just to come out and have fun, no nerves.”

Covers displayed that on the vault after a disheartening warm-up. In the real competition, she landed a Yurchenko layout on her first attempt, consulted with Prairie Ridge coach Lee Battaglia, then added a twist on her second, which earned her the 9.8.

“It was just go all out,” Covers said. “I was like, ‘No way. [Losing] is not going to happen.’ If there were more people twisting, I could have accepted it. To land that was nice.”

Covers was the only competitor to add the twist on her Yurchenko vault.

“We came back well after bombing the first event [Friday’s uneven bars],” Battaglia said. “Good for Jenny. Now we just need to get the bars and beam.”

Sandquist and Weber were both in the finals for the first time. And they both made the most of their opportunities once there. Sandquist scored 0.125 higher than her preliminary routine, while Weber improved by 0.5.

“I can’t believe it,” Sandquist said. “I was not expecting this at all. I told Lee I was shaking so bad, but he said I looked really confident. I knew I could hit it if I stayed confident. I wasn’t expecting anything, I was just excited to make the finals and wanted to hit my routine.”

Weber said she felt her floor routine Friday was the best she ever had done. Then, she topped it Saturday.

“I felt like it was pretty good,” Weber said. “I was a little off, but you can’t be perfect.”

The Wolves were competing at state as a team for the first time since 2002, when they took sixth place. The fourth-place finish is their best in school history for state gymnastics.

“For Molly and Taylor to make finals is a great accomplishment,” Battaglia said. “Then, they make the awards stand. That’s something they’ll never forget, being on the awards stand at the Illinois state meet.”