Williams dominant at New Castle (01/30/06)

NEW CASTLE — Hannah Williams is back.

An ankle injury took her out of the season’s first couple of meets. And it kept her from trying all of her most difficult skills for much of the first month of the season.

She brought everything back at New Castle Saturday.

Williams posted the best all-around score of her career, 36.95, to lead the Jay County gymnastics team to a season-best score and second-place finish at the four-team meet.

The Patriots posted a 100.45 while the host Trojans also had their best score of the season — 101.75 — to finish first. Blackford was third (86.45), and Blue River finished a distant fourth (50.6).

Williams won every event en route to her massive all-around total, scoring matching 9.45s on the balance beam and floor exercise. The previous high all-round score for the 2005 beam state runner-up was a 36.6 at last season’s regional meet.

She added winning scores of 9.3 on the vault and 8.75 on the uneven parallel bars.

As a team the Patriots dominated the bars, posting four of the top six scores. Lacey Thornburg was third at 8.4, Kristin Brown finished fifth at 7.9 and Erika Hunt was sixth at 7.5.

Thornburg, who was sixth all-around at 31.8, finished fourth on the vault with an 8.55. Brown was fifth on the balance beam at 7.65, and Jenny Buckland took fifth on the floor with an 8.25.[[In-content Ad]]