May 16, 2008

Lancers top CCS

Gunn senior repeats victory in all-around; Hoag leads St. Francis

By Julio Lara / Daily News Correspondent

Pop quiz: what's more impressive, winning the Central Coast Section team title for the ninth straight year, or winning your second straight CCS all-around crown des[ote a spinal cord injury?

You'd be right with either answer as the gymnastics season came to a close with a couple of extraordinary performances at Gymstone Gymnastics in San Bruno - one by San Francis and the other by Gunn's Miranda Der.

The Lancers captured their ninth straight CCS gymnastics team title, posting a score of 187.600. Gunn of Palo Alto finished second with 174.600 and Mercy of Burlingame came in fourth with 161.975.

"I have a lot of depth on this team. I have veterans and I have young kids that are pushing the veterans," St. Francis coach Lynn Horiye said.

It's this rotation of talent that has been the key to St. Francis in their complete dominance of the team sport - a dominance that now totals 13 CCS titles.

"It was a big team effort and I'm really proud of them," Horiye said.

Four Lancers placed in the top 10 all-around and six in the top 20.

But the day belonged to Der, who defended her all-around title in valiant fashion.

If all you knew about Der was that she suffered what appeared to be a very nagging, painful neck injury during her warm-up on the vault, her first event of the day, then you'd know plenty about the Gunn senior.

"The coach, the judges, and the trainer, they all told me not to compete," Der said. "But I felt like I could do it and I really don't like giving up. I had to finish."

Finish, she did.

With her neck in a "pretty immobile" state, Der put on a show.

In the vault, a 9.675 was good for second behind Mercy of Burlingame's Samantha Wong.

She then moved over to the bars and her 9.700 was good for first. While it wasn't the 9.950 of last year, it would more than do.

Der hit a little bump on the beam, where her 9.425 was good for only 11th. It was the lapse on the beam that opened up the window for a couple of her competitors.

St. Francis' Kelsey Hoag looked like she would take advantage, but she finished tied for third in the all-around.

Der's real competition came from Mercy's Samantha Wong. Last year's winner of the vault duplicated her feat, along with finishing second on the bars, but Wong's beam was good only for 13th, and her 9.500 on the day's final event, the floor exercise, wasn't enough to overtake Der.

Der said No. 2 was sweeter than No. 1 - mainly because she overcame an injury to reach the top of the CCS world.

"When I compete, adrenaline takes over pain and I just have to not focus on it," Der said.

"Even though health is really important, your mindset has to be that competing is the most important thing and performing has to take over everything."