Sammie Boster floats in rare air

Tom Keegan
​Onwardtrojans@gmail.com

Don’t let her smile that lands so gently on the judges’ score sheets fool you. It masks the intensely competitive nature of Chesterton sophomore gymnast Sammie Boster.
A virtuoso in class daily with beginners, Boster appreciates the vocal support of teammates, but in the way of challenges, she has to generate those on her own.
So she does, and with the help of her coaches, she pushes herself, increasing the difficulty of her routines at a steady rate.
Nobody from either school was going to challenge her in any of the four events at Tuesday night’s dual meet at Michigan City, so Boster had to become her own stiffest competition. She did that by adding wrinkles in both her balance beam, her best event, and the bars, which she considers her weakest.
Mission accomplished in both events. Boster won each event and posted a season-best 37.475 all-around score.
Host Michgan City won the dual meet 95.950- 93.675, and Boster won the battle against herself.
Her beam performance was particularly impressive and earned a 9.625 mark from the judges.
“I added a different jump in there that I hadn’t done yet and that was pretty cool,” Boster said afterward. “I’m just working on cleaning up on all of my other skills to get it better.”
Less balanced athletes would have fallen after a couple of jumps and she almost did, but steadied herself just in time.
“My newest is a straddle jump on the side of the beam, and then I do a switch leap split three-quarter.”
And if you think that’s hard to say, you should try doing it. Then again, don’t.
Boster scored a 9.5 on her floor routine and a 9.325 on the vault.
She considers the bars to be the toughest event, but her score also started with a 9 there, specifically a 9.025, so she was pleased with that.
“I definitely did pretty well on bars for what I usually do,” she said. “I just added a bail (shoot-over to handstand) into my bar routine,” Boster said. “It’s good to get out there and do it for these dual meetsx, so that way when it comes time for postseason I’ll be more ready and I’ll have experience doing it in meets before postseason.”
Chesterton head coach Christy Dzierba puts no limits on Boster and has said she believes she has a chance to develop into the state all-around champion as soon as this season. Boster was regional champion in the beam as a freshman.
“She’s getting there. She’s improving,” Dzierba said after the Michigan City meet. “We have little balance checks here and there, some little things to clean up, but other than that I think we’re good to go.”
Boster was one of four healthy Chesterton gymnasts to compete at Michigan City. Freshman Lexi Milton, who came to high school with some club experience, finished fifth in the all-around. Adriana Perez, a freshman who took up the sport this season, finished sixth.
“They’re definitely getting a lot better from where they started at the beginning of the season,” Boster said of her teammates. “They’re getting stronger and they’re getting bigger skills, too.”
Teammates can’t help her in the way of instruction, but their support is appreciated.
“It’s definitely different from what I was used to, so it’s a little bit of a change to go to practice every day and learn how to push myself, rather than rely on other people,” Boster said. “But I definitely think I’m getting better at going into practices and pushing myself to go harder. And even though these girls can’t do the big skills, they definitely are supportive and help me by cheering me on to do all my skills, so that helps a lot, too.”
Dzierba agreed with her coach’s assessment of the newcomers.
“They are improving,” Dzierba said. “Our team score just went up six points from our last meet, which is huge. We’re slowly adding stuff into all their routines also.”

Michigan City 95.950, Chesterton 93.675

Chesterton results
Bars: 1. Sammie Boster 9.025; 2. Lexi Milton 5.725; 3. Adriana Perez 4.825.
Vault: 1. Boster 9.325; 6. Milton 8.150; Perez 7.950.
Beam: 1. Boster 9.625; 5. Milton 7.375; Perez 6.65; Morgan Marlow 5.750.
Floor: 1. Boster 9.500; Perez 7.800; Milton 7.725; Marlow 7.150.
All-around: 1. Boster 37.475; 5. Milton 28.975; 6. Perez 27.225