Women's Gymnastics | January 28

DeKALB, Ill. – After two weeks on the road, the Northern Illinois University gymnastics team returns to the Convocation Center for two consecutive meets at home starting with Sunday's competition against Kent State and Southeast Missouri State at 1 p.m.
 
"It's nice to get back into conference competition," said NIU head coach Sam Morreale. "Kent, going into the year, was the pre-season favorite in the conference. We have aspirations to be conference champs, and it's a great place to start and good place to show what we can do. They are a great, well-coached team. They're always competitive, but I feel like we're pretty competitive too."
 
The Huskies are looking to put on a similar performance to the last home meet where they were able to score a season high 194.825 against Western Michigan, Iowa and Lindenwood. The team was able to set its season high balance beam score of 48.725.
 
Since the last meet at home, NIU has set season best scores in the other three events recording 48.700 on vault and 48.925 on beam at Ball State (Jan. 15) and recording 49.025 at Oregon State (Jan. 21).
 
"The last couple weeks we've shown a lot of flashes of where we were that first week, so, honestly, we're chasing that again," said Morreale. "We want to show up at a meet and be the team we know we are on all four events.
 
"It's great to be home. It's great to be in front of your own crowd. They get to sleep in their own beds. It will be nice to get two weeks of consistent practice and competition in familiar surroundings."
 
The Huskies are staying confident with the lineup only making minor adjustments to the first half of the balance beam rotation. The vault squad also has a small adjustment switching the three and four spot gymnasts.
 
Sunday is Stick it to Cancer Day whee the Huskies will recognize patients currently receiving care from the Kishwaukee Cancer Center in DeKalb.
 
All fans wanting to attend the meet get in for free. For fans who cannot make the competition this weekend, Live Streaming and Live Stats will be available as well as twitter updates from @Niugymnastics and @NIUScores.
 
-NIU-