Sammie Boster competes Saturday in state meet at Ball State’s Worthen Arena seeking to add to Chesterton’s medal collection, the third-largest in the state

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Chesterton gymnasts have won 19 individual titles at the state meet and Trojans junior Sammie Boster will try to expand that total Saturday at Worthen Arena on the campus of Ball State University.
Boster won the 19th first-place medal a year ago, taking the balance beam competition. She enters this coming Saturday’s meet riding the momentum of having the highest all-around score (38.375) at a regional last Saturday.
At this season’s Portage regional, Boster placed first in the vault (9.700), the bars (9.625), the floor exercise (9.625) and placed a close second on the beam (9.4000) despite an automatic deduction of at least .500 for falling off the beam.
Throughout her high school career, Boster singlehandedly has kept Chesterton relevant at the state level. This is her third consecutive solo trip to Muncie.
Battling a flu and wrapping herself in a blanket when not competing, Boster still managed to finish 11th in the all-around standings as a freshman.
Last season, in addition to winning the beam with a 9.675 score, Boster placed ninth in the vault (9.425) and was eighth in the all-around with a 37.200.
Ironically, the event that drew Boster’s lowest score at the regional was the performance that projected best for her chances of winning an individual event. Without falling on the beam, her score would have been 9.9. She also didn’t 100 % nail the landing. Coach Christy Dzierba, who has judging experience, estimated that Boster’s right foot buckling slightly cost her another .05 deduction. So no fall and a clean landing would have been a 9.95, which begs the question: Is a 10.0 even possible?
“It is,” Dzierba said. “I don’t know if a judge has ever given out a 10, but it’s possible. I know I had one girl, it wasn’t at state, but I had one girl in the past who got a 9.95 on bars.”
That was Mia Pak, one of the seven Chesterton girls who have won state titles. The seven: Sophia Hunzelman 6 (two bars, two beams, two all-around); Pak 4 (three bars, one vault); Lauren West 4 (two bars, one beam, one all-around); Jordan Bush 2 (two floors); Diane Bakaitis 1 (vault); Boster 1 (beam); Leslie West 1 (beam).
Bush, a current assistant coach to Dzierba, is the school’s only floor state champion in school history and her 9.825 for the state champion Trojans in 2018 is the highest score at state in any event by any gymnast in school history.
Boster enters Saturday’s meet as a contender in the all-around because she can’t be counted out of any event. Her 9.700 in the vault was tied for the second-best score in the state during regionals and it has been a consistently strong event for her all season.
Defending state all-around and bars champion Jillian Creager of Homestead, is among other gymnasts who also have a shot at multiple titles.
Chesterton’s 19 individual titles is the third-most in the state, ranking behind only Valparaiso (44) and Columbus North (24).
Chesterton’s six team state titles (1993, 2000, 2002, 2018, 2019, 2020) is tied for second-most with Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger and Homestead, ranking behind only Valparaiso (14 titles).