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Sports

Downers North Boys Gymnasts Make History

The Trojans capture third place at the state meet and bring home their first boys gymnastics trophy in school history.

The Downers North boys gymnastics team advanced to the state meet each of the , but went home empty-handed—i.e., no state trophy—every time.

The Trojans took their entire squad to state once again last weekend, and this time, they were not to be denied.

Although North didn’t place anyone higher than sixth in any event, coach Al Bekkedal’s squad was a model of consistency throughout Saturday’s finals and placed third as a team.

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Today, a long sought-after state trophy sits in the North High School trophy case—the first for a DGN boys gymnastics team in school history.

Host school Lincoln-Way East scored a 163.0 to capture the state championship while Wheaton Co-op registered a 161.250 for second. The Trojans tallied 156.650 points to edge fourth-place Naperville North (152.650).

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Senior Luke Schubert and junior Luke Wychocki stepped up big for the Trojans in the finals. Schubert recorded North’s best individual finish with a sixth in the horizontal bars (8.95)—an event that turned out to be the Trojans’ best of the day.

Wychocki scored an 8.80 in the event for eighth place. He also went on to tie Naperville North’s Josh Soto for seventh place on the pommel horse (both gymnasts recorded an 8.85 score).

In addition, Schubert secured top-10 finishes in three additional events: Still rings, on which he scored an 8.95 for seventh place; vault (9.15, eighth place); and parallel bars (8.95, ninth place).

Senior Matt Rakow ended his prep gymnastics career by notching the highest individual score among all his teammates in the finals—a 9.30 in the floor exercise, good for ninth place.

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