Monster day for Chesterton gymnast Sammie Boster includes repeat state title in balance beam, second in all-around and third in uneven parallel bars at Worthen Arena

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Elite gymnasts are a lot of things: are acrobatic, flexible, powerful, graceful, tough. At heart, they’re performers. Give them an audience and the bigger it is the higher they will soar.
Chesterton gymnastics coach Christy Dzierba set the scene of how Sammie Boster’s final event, the balance beam, went down Saturday at the state championship meet at Worthen Arena on the campus of Ball State University.
“Last one in the entire meet,” Dzierba said. “Everyone in the arena was done competing and all eyes were on her.”
And?
“She nailed it,” Boster’s head coach said. “It was great. Everyone’s cheering for her. It was wonderful. Saved the best for last!”
Boster scored a 9.675 to win the event for the second year in a row. No other state champion won her event by more than 0.050 points. In landing Chesterton’s 20th individual state title, Boster won hers by 0.250, well ahead of second-place finishers, Homestead senior Jillian Creager, winner of the all-around for the second year in a row, and Valparaiso’s Ava Moe.
To go with her first-place medal in the beam, Boster brought home a second-place medal in the all-around, finishing just .175 behind Creager with a 38.100, and took third place in the uneven parallel bars with a 9.550.
The crowd tuning solely into her for the final performance gave Boster an unforgettable moment and she returned the favor with an unforgettable performance.
“It was really exciting to hear everyone cheering and all that because it’s nice to know everyone’s supporting you and wants you to do well,” Boster said. “I thought it was pretty good. I had a little wobble on my aerial, but other than that, everything was pretty solid.”
A junior, Boster has made a solo trip to state every year and has improved her all-around score significantly each time.
Boster’s biggest strides have come in her uneven parallel bars routine.
“I was really proud of myself and really surprised with how far I’ve come with bars because it used to be one of my worst events, now it’s one of my best, right up there with beam,” Boster said. “I was really excited.”
Dzierba called her third-place finish in the bars, “amazing in itself because bars was always one of her weaker events but it isn’t anymore.”
The 9.550 score shows how far she has progressed in an event that drew her a 9.100 as a freshman and a 9.050 as a sophomore.
Boster’s Saturday got off to a strong start with a 9.475 floor exercise score that stood up as tied for seventh-best in the field, and was a big jump from the 9.050 she was graded a year ago.
Next, she was off to the vault, which had been a consistently strong event for her this season.
Boster scored a 9.400, compared to a 9.575 for Creager. The two gymnasts scores in the other three events combined were identical, so the vault was what separated them.
In the vault, gymnasts get two attempts and the better score is used. Boster aggravated an old ankle injury on the landing of her first attempt. “They’re college mats, so they’re a little bit higher and they’re a little bit harder, but she also didn’t get enough block off of her shoulders, so she landed a little short,” Dzierba said.
Translation for those who are not gymnastics aficionados: her shoulder push off the vault table wasn’t quite forceful enough to give her ideal height and distance.
According to Grok, an aficionado on all matters, “a shoulder push (sometimes called a ‘shoulder block,’ ‘shoulder shrug,’ or ‘shoulder drive’) refers to a powerful, isolated action where the gymnast forcefully pushes or thrusts through the shoudlers–often shrugging them upward toward the ears–while keeping the arms straight (or nearly straight). This generates extra height, power, speed, or rebound in skills without relying primarily on bending the elbows.”
Boster was in pain after the second landing and an ice pack quickly was wrapped around her right ankle.
“It hurt a little but I just pushed through it,” Boster said.
From there, Boster did an excellent job of practicing what coaches in all sports preach, which can be summed up in two words: next play.
“It’s a new event and it’s completely different and I wasn’t able to change what I did in vault, so I just had to remind myself that it happened, it’s in the past, and I can’t let it ruin the rest of my meet,” she said.
Her impressive comeback that started with the bars was punctuated by a beam score that was identical to the one that earned her the state title as a sophomore.
“I thought it was pretty good,” Boster said. “I had a little wobble on my aerial but other than that, everything was pretty solid.”
Creager led a deep Homestead to first in the team standings with a 112.125, just a tenth of a point ahead of Fort Wayne Bishop Carroll (112.025), followed by Angola (111.325), Valparaiso (110.425), Columbus North (107.525), New Palestine (107.300), Lake Central (106.975), Portage (105.025) and Noblesville (103.325).
On the strength of her final event, Boster moved past third-place finisher Avery Ziembo of Carroll, who scored a 38.075.
Boster’s all-around score in three state meets shows how steadily she has progressed: freshman: 36.325 11th; sophomore: 37.200 eighth; 38.100 second.
That progression makes it easy to see why she said, “I feel really good about next year.”
In addition to Dzierba, Boster was accompanied on the trip by assistant coaches Jordan Bush, Jordan Kearby, Caitlyn Cook and spectating freshman teammate Leah Douglass.
She explained how her memorable experience included more than a standout performance, saying,
“The practice was really good and fun and going out to eat and hanging out in the hotel with everyone, it was all really fun and exciting.”