ESPN3

DEKALB, Ill. - The Northern Illinois University women's gymnastics team will be competing in a pair of meets this weekend, traveling to Chicago Friday before returning home to play host to a tri-meet at the Convocation Center Sunday on ESPN3.

NIU's (4-1, 2-1) will compete against Big 12 foe Iowa State and Yale in the IGI Chicago Style Meet at Chicago's Navy Pier Friday night at 7 p.m. The Huskies return home to take on Mid-American Conference rival Bowling Green and Alaska Anchorage Sunday at 2 p.m.

"It's great to compete against Iowa State. It seems like it's become a regular thing," said NIU head coach Sam Morreale. "The last few years we've seen them a lot. The meet itself is really a great opportunity to get out in front of a bunch of people. A lot of kid's home clubs will be there so we'll get a little extra support from that standpoint."

While the meet with the Falcons is important to NIU, the Huskies will not be holding anything back at Friday's meet. Morreale even adjusted the team's practice schedule this week to prepare for the two tri-meets that NIU will be competing in this weekend.

"It's not all about one meet, even though the Sunday meet is more important from a conference standpoint, but we definitely want to keep momentum going," he said. "We're not going to pull back on Friday to be ready for Sunday or vice versa. We're going to go full tilt at both meets.

"We've adjusted our practice a little bit as we've come up to it to give their bodies time to rest and recoup. The great thing about competition is your adrenaline gets up that it's almost easier than practice is."

The Huskies are looking to build on their strong start to the first half of 2015. NIU is off to its best start since 2009 when the Huskies were also 4-1 after five meets. NIU enters this weekend's action coming off a big victory over defending MAC champion Central Michigan. The Huskies are also looking for their first 3-1 start in MAC play since 2009 as well.

"We've gotten off to a great start in conference." Morreale said. "Bowling Green is a team that, up until the last event at the MAC Championships was pushing to win it the championship, is a good team. We have to give them our best outing in order to get them. We want to do that. We want to compete against good teams because it makes us better." Admission for Sunday's meet is free. Fans who cannot make it to the Convocation Center or watch the event on ESPN3 can follow the action live online via NIUHuskies.com. There will also be live scoring on the website and fans can follow all the action on Twitter via @NIUscores.com.

-NIU-