DeKALB, Ill. – Freshman Brookelyn Sears claimed another all-around title and Northern Illinois University gymnasts won a share of first place on all four events, but the Huskies dropped a 193.900-192.775 decision to Western Michigan Friday night at the NIU Convocation Center.
 
Sears, who last week earned the highest all-around score by a Huskie freshman since 2008, matched that score Friday with a 38.775.  Fellow all-arounder Morgan Hooper won the uneven parallel bars with a 9.825, while junior Mia Lord took the balance beam title for the second straight meet with a 9.850 mark. Sophomore Tara Kofmehl earned the highest score of the meet with a 9.875 on floor exercise to win that event with Hooper just behind at 9.850.  Kofmehl's 9.750 was also good for a tie for first on vault.
 
NIU head coach Sam Morreale said the bright spots and good performances should not be overlooked even in the loss.    
 
"We're just not producing when we get into a meet right now," Morreale said. "We're trying harder than we need to try instead of just being who we are.  We'll be fine as we move forward, we had a lot of really good performances tonight and I don't want to lose sight of those.  We need five hits, it's as simple as that. If we're going to compete, if we're going to try to win a meet, we have to get five hits [out of six routines] on each event."
 
A week after struggling on bars, the Huskies put together their highest team score of the meet on that event Friday with a 48.600. NIU was forced to count misses on both balance beam and floor, managing team scores of 48.050 and 47.975 on the events, traditionally the Huskies' strongest.
 
"I truly feel beam and floor are going to be our highest scoring events, along with bars in terms of consistency" Morreale said. "I feel like here today we pressed, we were tight.  We weren't loose, there wasn't a good rhythm to what we were doing. This sport is timing, it's rhythm, it's about finding our comfort zone."
 
The Huskies (1-1 overall and in the MAC) return to action on Friday, January 24 when they take on Illinois State in Normal, Illinois beginning at 7 p.m.
 
-- NIU --