Wheaton Warrenville South Co-op Claims 3rd Place in Saturday's Illinois Best Girls Gymnastics Invitational

If anyone knows what it feels like to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It's Wheaton Warrenville South co-op's Sarah Deicke. Having missed plenty of action in her career due to injuries, Deicke had to wait until the very end of Saturday's Illinois Best Girls Gymnastics Invitational at Wheaton Warrenville South to compete in her lone event of the meet, the floor exercise.

The wait was more than worth it as Deicke won the event with an 8.950. Her effort helped Wheaton Warrenville South co-op edge Oswego, 66.975 to 66.650 for third place.

"I just tried to watch my team and then finally I just warmed up a little bit and got ready to go," she said. "It was pretty good but I'm still not all the way there with my cardio. My first pass was OK, but my second wasn't so good and my knee has been bothering me. So I'm happy, but there's always room for improvement."

Waubonsie Valley/Metea Valley co-op won the Invitational with a 69.2 and Geneva was the runner-up with a 67.85.

The unique format of the meet allows four individual gymnasts to compete in one event apiece as well as one all-arounder.

Emily Cook was given the nod to compete as the all-arounder and she took fifth place with a 33.6. Her best score came in the floor exercise with an 8.8.

"I've been wanting to compete in the all-around since freshman year but injuries the past two years have really made it difficult," she said. "It was better than my usual meet but not my best."

More important long-term for Cook and her team was the progress she made with her routines.

"I added my tsuk, my giants and a tumbling pass so all of that was good stuff to add," she said. "I just need to be more consistent. It's taken me awhile to get my skills back to where they were before (I was hurt) and then I still want to try to add more."

Kristina Terry, whose ability to stick on beam is comparable to Krazy Glue, took second place with an 8.525.

"She's a really strong beam competitor and I've been told she's only fallen twice," Wheaton Warrenville South co-op coach Maureen Latimer said. "In a meet like this where you only have two competitors per event, beam was a perfect choice for her today."

Stephanie Schmanski and Sarah Bradley were the other gymnasts who competed for the hosts. Schmanski took sixth on bars with a 7.8 and Bradley posted an 8.1 on vault to claim ninth place.

Wheaton Warrenville South co-op found itself in seventh place midway through the meet, but delivered on beam (16.650) and floor (17.750) to leap several teams in the standings.

"I knew floor would be strong for us and beam would be solid," Latimer said. "You always want to be optimistic and hope for the best."

Finishing in third place won't go unnoticed either, especially after the team only took eighth place in last week's Conant Invite.

"We finished at the bottom of the heap and it was difficult to swallow for the competitors and the coaches," Latimer said. "They came in with a fire under their butts on Monday and were pulling out skills from the past and were ready to compete again."

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