NORMAL, Ill. – One week after setting a school record with 196.300 points in a home tri-meet victory, the Northern Illinois University women's gymnastics team did not reach the 194-point mark in a 194.900-193.775 loss to Illinois State at Redbird Arena Friday.
 
The Huskies started well on uneven parallel bars with a team total of 48.800, led by anchor Natalie Hamp (Ionia, Mich./Ionia HS) who finished second on the event with a 9.825, and junior Brookelyn Sears (Centerville, Ohio/Centerville HS), who scored a 9.800. NIU ran into trouble on vault and was forced to count a miss, despite a team-best 9.750 by Gabby Welch (Greenbrier, Tenn./Aaron Academy) and a "stick" 9.725 vault by Ciara Ryan (Crystal Lake, Ill./Crystal Lake South HS).
 
"We were good in a lot of places, but we stepped back into just too many misses, too many mistakes and we counted two falls and lost by a point," said NIU head coach Sam Morreale.  "For what we're trying to get and where we're trying to go, we can't have the mistakes. Last week we eliminated those."
 
After scoring just 47.925 on vault, the Huskies rebounded on floor exercise with Alana Anderson (Joliet, Ill./Joliet West HS) and Tara Kofmehl (Mesa, Ariz./Red Mountain HS) each scoring a 9.850 to tie for second.  NIU totaled a 48.900 on floor before moving to balance beam. On beam, Sears and Morgan Hooper (Lincoln, Neb./St. Pius X HS) bookended the Huskie rotation with 9.875 routines to tie for first, however, a pair of falls in the middle of the line-up forced NIU to count a miss on that event.
 
"We were good in a lot of places and saw some good individual performances," Morreale said. "We put some different people in the line-up and I thought Olivia [Lynd] did a good job in her two events. Overall, it was not a good vault day, I thought we tumbled as well as we have and beam finished their routines strong with sticks on the landings, but there were too many major mistakes. The good news is we get to come back in a couple of days and have another shot at it."
 
NIU (7-4) and Illinois State (3-6) meet again on Sunday in the NIU Convocation Center. The meet gets underway at 1 p.m. and admission is free.
 
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