Women's Gymnastics | February 1

DeKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University gymnastics team hits the road on Friday to compete in a quad-meet hosted by No. 24 Iowa State. No. 27 West Virginia and Yale will also be competing in the 6:30 p.m. CDT competition in Hilton Coliseum.
 
"This meet is going to be a good challenge for us," said NIU head coach Sam Morreale. "Like this past weekend, it will be loud, it will be crowded, and there will be a lot of people there. There will be two Big 12 teams there with Iowa State and West Virginia, so it's going to be a good test for us, but we're definitely ready for it."
 
The Huskies are going into the weekend coming off two-team high scores of 195.200 at Kent State on Jan. 19 and 194.950 against Central Michigan last Sun., Jan 28. NIU is looking to build off their last two scores instead of who their competition for the week is.
 
"We really aren't competing against those guys as much as we are," said Morreale. "Obviously, there is a win or loss aspect to what we do, but for us, we're trying to do our gymnastics to the best of our ability and trying to climb that score ladder."
 
In last week's meet against Central Michigan, the Huskies recorded two 9.900 scores from senior captains Ashley Potts (Oakwood Hills, Ill./Prairie Ridge) and Katherine Prentice (Indianapolis, Ind./Roncalli) on the balance beam and uneven parallel bars, respectively. The Huskies' only other 9.900 of the season came from their third captain, Anna Martucci (Clarkston, Mich./Our Lady of the Lakes) as she hit the score on floor the previous week at Kent State.
 
As NIU shoots for higher scores each week, they are keeping to working on the basics and improving what they can control.
 
"The good thing about this team is day-in and day-out, they are doing the work, so we're starting to see those positives start to come out," said Morreale. "We're still making little mistakes along the way, but they're definitely things that we work on every day, and we can clean up. This week we worked a little more on landings and it has been a really good week of those."
 
Huskie fans wanting to follow the gymnasts from afar can watch the Live Stream or follow the Live Results. NIU will also be posting updates during the meet on its Twitter page. To follow along with the team follow their Instagram (@niugymnastics) and Twitter (@Niugymnastics) pages.
 
-NIU-