Women's Gymnastics | January 28
DeKalb, Ill. - The Northern Illinois University gymnastics team opened its 2024 home schedule Sunday against Mid-American Conference foes and Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan with the Eagles taking the top spot in the tri-meet by a score of 195.700-195.325 over Central Michigan. NIU finished third with a score of 193.425.
The Huskies top event of the day was floor exercise as NIU finished the meet with a team-high event score of 49.175.
Alana Anderson (Joliet, Ill./Joliet West),
Isabella Ross (Cary, N.C./Green Level) and
Emmalise Nock (Rosemount, Minn./Rosemount) all scored 9.850 to record NIU's top individual scores of the meet.
Junior all-arounder
Isabella Sissi (Blaine, Minn./Mounds View) matched that 9.850 mark on vault to record the Huskies' best score – and a career high - on that event. She finished with a 39.050 in the all-around, her second consecutive 39-plus score on the season. The
Huskies opened the meet with a 48.925 on vault.
In the second rotation
Alyssa Al-Ashari (Lansing, Mich./Grand Ledge) recorded a 9.800 on uneven parallel bars to take fourth place.
On beam the Huskies struggled as they fell off pace as they were forced to count three misses. Ross and Sissi led the Huskies on the event with scores of 9.750.
"We struggled on beam today," Morreale said. "Training wise we were in a much better place before the meet. I'm not sure if it was the energy or the excitement that affected us. We will fix it and I still know who we are as a team."
NIU then rebounded on floor exercise.
"The beauty of gymnastics is that you can shut an event off and go to the next event," Morreale said. "We can't change the scores of the past events but we can get a chance to make it better."
The Huskies will be back in action at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 9 as they host WMU, Wisconsin-La Crosse and Wisconsin-Whitewater in the annual "Beauty and the Beast Meet" with the NIU gymnastics and wrestling teams competing simultaneously on the floor of the NIU Convocation Center.
"We had a great atmosphere today and the Beauty and the Beast meet in a couple weeks will be like that.," Morreale said." "Today's meet should help with the preparation for that."
-- NIU --
