Chesterton’s second-year gymnastics facility, the Bailly Elementary gymnasium, houses its biggest event Saturday when the DAC championships come to town

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The Bailly Elementary Gymnasium, home for the Chesterton gymnastics team the past two years, has been a huge hit so far, according to Mike Bachuchin.
“This is a great, great practice facility,” said Bachuchin, who has 47 years of experience as a director of gymnastics meets. “It’s one of the best practice facilities and dual meet facilities in the state. Every team that’s come here this year that was not here last year has complimented us on how nice the setup is.”
His decades of experience in the sport give him the advantage of nothing ever taking him by surprise. Along the way, if something wasn’t just so in preparation for a meet, his wife, Hall of Fame gymnastics coach Maria Bachuchin, had the trained eye and access to point it out to him.
Any concerns heading into the DAC meet?
“It’s going to be very crowded here Saturday,” said Mike, inducted with Maria in the original Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame. “We’re going to have nine sets of bleachers out there. The owner’s manual, so to speak, says that’s 360 people. But people like to spread out, so you’re not going to get 360 people sitting. So that’ll be a challenge.”
The gates open at 11 a.m. for the noon meet, so those wanting to guarantee themselves seats, might want to arrive closer to the opening of the gates than the start of the meet.
The DAC meet format follows that of the sectional. Each team enters four girls from each event and three scores count toward the team score.
Thanks to a collaborative effort of former Chesterton gymnast Leslie (West) LaRue, an art teacher at Wheeler, and Chesterton assistant athletic director Tommy Berry, spectators will be able to track the scores on their iPhones, via QR codes posted on the gymnasium walls.
Mike Bachuchin explained how that will work: “Leslie has come up with a program that when her dad, Gary West, the head scorekeeper, types a result into the computer and he pushes the save button on that score, there will be QR codes on the walls and people, if they want to, can follow the scores by using their iPhones to plug into the website that Tommy has put up.”
Chesterton doesn’t have the depth to compete for the team title, but defending state balance beam champion, junior Sammie Boster, is a contender in all four events and the all-around.
Mike Bachuchin has no control over how that plays out, but is confident the meet will progress in a fair way that allows the best girls on that day to gain the best scores.
“We’re going to try to get the meet started on time, so that it’s done by 3,” Mike said.