Sammie Boster wins balance beam, vault, floor exercise at Crown Point sectional, ties for second in all-around

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Sammie Boster had about as good a day as a gymnast could without winning the all-around title Saturday in the sectional meet at Crown Point.
Boster won the balance beam, the vault and the floor exercise sectional titles, but faltered in the bars and settled for a tie for second place with Crown Point senior Madelyn Martell in the all-around with a score of 37.775. Valparaiso senior Megan Garibay won the all-around with a score of 38.400.
Garibay didn’t win an event but finished second in the vault, the bars, and the floor and took fifth in the beam with a 9.500.
Boster’s afternoon in the spotlight started on the beam, her best event. The Chesterton sophomore executed her difficult routine with one wobble and another even smaller one on the dismount and scored a 9.675 It stood up all day as the best score.
“Shes’ definitely the Beam Queen,” Chesterton coach Christy Dzierba said.
Then Boster was off to the vault, where her first score was solid enough to get aggressive on the second one, but not so good that she could afford to bypass her second attempt. She made the adjustments her first vault pointed her toward and won that title too with a 9.650.
“In my first one I knew what needed to be fixed to make it better, so focused on that in the second one,” Boster said. “My first one wasn’t bad, so I had nothing to lose with the second one. I gave it my all and tried to fix everything I could in that second one and it ended up working out really well. I needed to have a little more power and not have my elbows bent on the table. Having a lot of power, that’s the main thing in the vault.”
Next, Boster entertained the audience with a floor exercise that was full of difficult jumps and welcoming vibe, the work of someone who looked more like she was playing than working. Another 9.650, another sectional championship.
“Watching everyone stop and watch her on the floor, I love it!” Dzierba said. “She just shows it off. She has fun. And you can tell in her dance and tumbling and her leaps and jumps, she just has fun. That’s what I tell her. Just go have fun. Don’t stress over it.”
Nothing about the way she performed to the delight of rapt spectators suggested she was feeling any stress.
Boster started the day with her best event and finished it with her most challenging one, the bars. She got off to a swinging good start, but ultimately fell, an automatic half-point deduction.
Boster explained what she thought caused the fall: “My first half was really good, then I was a bit rushed. I rushed myself, so that’s why I fell.”
Her score of 8.80 was good enough to tie her for sixth in the event and good enough to earn her a tie for second-place in the all-around competition, but she wasn’t seeking anything worse than first place in the all-around, which she earned the previous week in the DAC meet in Crown Point to go with first-place ribbons in the beam and floor exercise.
Three out of the five ribbons at the DAC meet and three out of five at the sectional amount to gathering momentum heading into this coming Saturday’s regional at Portage. She will try to defend her beam title from a year ago, chase titles in the vault and floor and try to find that elusive consistency on the bars so that she can have a shot at the all-around title she won at the DAC meet.
“I’m definitely proud of that,” Boster said of winning the vault and floor competitions Saturday.
The best score posted by a Chesterton athlete other than Boster came in the vault, where junior Sophia Mussatto returned to the event she had not performed since injuries sustained before high school forced her away from gymnastics for a long stretch.
Her midseason return to the sport did not include competing in the vault because the running put too much strain on her ankle. Mussatto told Dzierba she wanted to do it, and the coach wasn’t so sure until relenting and letting her give it a try. Mussatto returned in style, scoring an 8.500, a tie for 23rd among 47 athletes who competed in the event.
Dzierba called it, “awesome!”
Mussatto finished 26th among 37 gymnasts in the all-around standings with a 30.75. Junior Adriana Perez compiled 27.500 in the all-around, edging freshman teammate Lexi Milton (27.400).
Chesterton scored 97.425 points and finished sixth among 12 schools in the competition in which the top three in the team standings advance to the regional round. Valparaiso (113.05 points) won the meet, followed by Crown Point (109.35). Lake Central (105.775) edged Portage (105.1) for the final spot.