Last Chance to watch gymnast sammie boster in town this season: Tuesday night at Bailly Elementary

Tom Keegan
onwardtrojans.com

Those who might have heard about a gymnast at the high school who is so proficient and entertaining at her best event that her coach refers to her as “Beam Queen” be advised: Tuesday is the last chance to watch sophomore Sammie Boster at a home meet this season.
Boster wowed the crowd with a 9.85 at the CHS Invitational and then scored a 9.8 several nights later in a dual vs. Valparaiso, both taking place at Bailly Elementary, the gymnastics team’s home. Tuesday’s home finale comes in a dual meet with Lake Central and gets underway at 6 p.m.
Injuries have limited the Trojans to fielding just four athletes for most meets: freshmen Morgan Marlow, Alexis Milton and Adriana Perez.
A former cheerleader, Perez had no gymnastics experience until coming to high school and neither did Marlow. Milton had some club experience.
Knowing they lacked the depth and experience to compete with Valpo in team scoring, the Trojans still found a way to put make head coach Christy Dzierba, assisted by Jordan Bush and Jordan Kearby, smile.
At the Valpo dual, all four Chesterton gymnasts finished their floor exercises by pressing their index fingers against their lips to make the Shhh! sign.
Bush explained how that came about.
“That’s from back in the day,” Bush said after the meet. “One of our practices when she was my (assistant) coach, we were kind of goofing off at practice and she was following us around the floor nitpicking everything and us being teenagers we were like ‘Can you just stop for one minute?’ Then Baylie Lawson, she was in the crowd tonight, she did that (Shhh! sign) back at her and we did the floor routine like that. We told the girls let’s do something fun, and said we could bring that back. We left it up to them and they said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
So each one did it.
“We wanted to surprise Christy,” Bush said. “We wanted to get a smile on her face.”
It worked.
“Oh, they’re full of surprises,” Dzierba said.
The Shh! gesture was born in 2019, the year Bush led the Trojans to a second consecutive state title, won the floor routine as a senior, finished second in the all-around and won the coveted mental attitude award.
“We did that our whole senior year,” Bush said. “Bringing it back was so much fun. It reminded me of when we were practicing back in the day. Now I’m the one going around the floor.”
The Trojans final three DAC dual meets are on the road, then the DAC meet is at Crown Point Feb. 22, sectional (March 1), regional (March 8), state tournament March 15.