DeKALB, Ill. – Prior to the Northern Illinois University gymnastics Red-Black Intrasquad Meet on Friday night in the NIU Convocation Center, head coach Sam Morreale said his goal was to split his squad evenly.  Mission accomplished as the Red team came out on top, 188.70-188.45 in the simulated meet.
 
"I'm super happy with the depth and the number of kids we were able to see in every event," Morreale said.  "We're ready for the season in a lot of places. 
 
"It was good to get everyone out there with people watching and cheering, with judges and in a meet situation.  We can't simulate this in practice and until you do [a meet] like this, you don't know how [the gymnasts] will react.  Some handled [the situation] really well and some we saw some things we had not seen out of them in practice."
 
One gymnast who picked up right where she left off was senior Anna Martucci, who moves from a "specialist" role as she excelled in two events a year ago, to compete for a spot in the line-up on all four events as an all-arounder in 2019.  Competing for the Red team, Martucci recorded the highest scores of the night on balance beam (9.70) and floor exercise (9.80). 
 
For the Black team, Martucci's sister Nina posted the best score of the night on the vault with a 9.70, and freshman Morgan Hooper led the way among all competitors on uneven parallel bars with a 9.80.
 
In addition to Hooper, freshman Tara Kofmehl was near the top of the leaderboard in three events (vault 9.65, beam 9.65, floor 9.70) as was junior Amanda Bartemio (vault 9.65, bars 9.65, floor 9.70). Allison Richardson posted one of the highest scores of the night on bars (9.75).
 
"The upperclassmen have been here before, they're going to fit right in and fill those holes left by departing seniors," Morreale said. "We have several seniors returning from injury, other returnees taking on more or different events, and then the freshmen are really talented."
 
Morreale said the intrasquad meet is a valuable step as the team continues to prepare for the competitive season that gets underway in January.
 
"We'll move to the next step to get the consistency [we see in practice]. We'll try to put people under pressure and make them perform in that setting," he said.
 
NIU opens its 2019 season on January 4 at a quad meet at Alabama, with its first official home competition on Friday, Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. in the Convocation Center.  
 
-- NIU --