Ultimate’s floor show dazzles judges in Florida

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These Level 7 girls from Ultimate Gym in Gurnee represented Team Illinois on the national stage. | SPECIAL TO SUN-TIMES MEDIA

Updated: April 2, 2012 1:56AM

Ultimate Gymnastics in Gurnee sent three Level 7 girls to Orlando to compete in the Sanddollar Invitational recently, and three trio made the most of the long trip.

Competing in different age groups, the three — Sonte Turnage and Emily Whitis of Lindenhurst, and Lizzie Jacobs of Grayslake — posted floor-exercise scores of 9.9, 9.7 and 9.85 respectively.

Those numbers earned Turnage and Whitis gold medals and Jacobs a silver medal.

Turnage’s score equals the Ultimate club record in floor exercise, held jointly by Waukegan’s Ella Peter and by Lauren Feely, the latter who is currently is starring at Carmel High School.

In addition to dominating on floor, Turnage won the all-around, and placed second in the other three events in her age group.

Jacobs took second on bars and third in the all-around in her group, and Whitis came away with silver on beam and bronze on uneven bars.

Members of the Level 5 and 6 teams also made the trip to Orlando.

At Level 6, Gabrielle Panlaqui took first on vault and added bronze medals on beam and in the all-around in the Junior B age group.

Her teammate Kylie Miller was second on floor and third on vault.

In the Junior A group, Ally Weihs placed second on vault.

At Level 5, the younger Panlaqui sister, Sabrina, had a great meet, scoring 9.65 to take first on bars in the Child B age group.

She also took second on floor and took the top spot in the all-around.

Daniella Strauss won gold on beam and placed third on floor and in the all-around while Hannah McCue placed third on bars.

Earlier, several of Ultimate’s Level 7 girls were on Team Illinois for a national competition.

At the National Judges Cup State Challenge in Indianapolis, Team Illinois finished 14th out of 23 state teams.

But Turnage and Whitis had a great go of it on the national stage.

Whitis, won balance beam and floor exercise in the 12-over age group, and Turnage won vaulting in the 10-year-old division. Turnage was third in the all-around.

Ella Peter placed third on floor in the 11-year-old age group, an achievement mirrored in the 12-over age group by Lake Villa’s Allison O’Connell.

Also in action at the same meet, but not in the State Challenge, were two other members of the Ultimate Level 7 team.

Chapin Grumhaus scored 9.45 on floor to win gold and also placed third on beam in the 9-11 age group.

Her teammate Samantha Sansweet, won her gold medal on beam (9.20) and tied for third on vault.

Shane Sanders, head coach at Ultimate, was delighted with the results.

“Everybody worked very hard preparing for this meet,” he said. “I am very proud of our performance and how well we represented the State of Illinois at such a prestigious competition.

“This was our highest team finish at this competition and the fact that we were able to leave with five individual gold medals is truly something to celebrate.”