L-Way's Hutton wins gold in horizontal bar

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BARRINGTON -- Dan Hutton was hoping for the kind of day that he had two years ago when he captured a pair of IHSA boys gymnastics championships.

But even though he fell a little bit short of that lofty goal in Saturday's competition in Barrington, he didn't miss out achieving it by much.

The Lincoln-Way senior took first place on horizontal bar and just missed winning titles in floor exercise, parallel bars and in the all-around.

His 9.5 on horizontal bar was the first score on that routine and it turned out to be the best by a .05 margin over Naperville Central's Keith Lage.

In 2006, Hutton tied for titles on horizontal bar and parallel bars with teammate Brian Hulbert. The two now share the program record for titles (3) and medals (8).

"I couldn't ask for anything more than to go out by taking first place on high bar," Hutton said. "At least I got one first place finish today but you win some and you lose some.

"I've done better on high bar and p-bars but that was the best floor routine I've ever done. All of the kids who won are my friends so I'm just as happy for them as I am for myself."

Earlier in the day in the all-around, Hutton took second with a 56.4, which was .2 behind champion Steve Deutsch of Glenbrook South.

He had a 9.65 on parallel bars, 9.55 on both vault and floor exercise, 9.5 on pommel horse, 9.2 on horizontal bar and 8.95 on still rings.

"I had a really good meet in the all-around this morning," Hutton said. "I fell on high bar and that brought me down five-tenths and he beat me by two-tenths, so that was the meet."

In the individual finals, Hutton also posted a 9.5 on parallel bars, but he was edged out of the championship by .05 by Wheaton's Tim Krueger.

He also tied for third place on floor exercise with a 9.6, which was .05 shy of champions Krueger and Lage. And he tied for seventh on both vault (9.1) and pommel horse (8.75).

Also earning a medal for Lincoln-Way was freshman Isaac Kruspe, who tied for fourth place in still rings with a 9.1 score.

"I thought I could take first place but I'm glad I got top 5," Kruspe said. "I'm happy that I got the experience of competing here as a freshman so now I know what to expect next year."

Lincoln-Way athletes in the top 20 in the preliminaries were Ryan Mars on vault (9.3) and horizontal bar (8.7), Phil Guinid on parallel bars (8.4), Hutton on still rings (8.95) and Kruspe on vault (9.25).