Women's Gymnastics | March 23

Muncie, Ind. – Northern Illinois University gymnasts Kiera O'Shea and Alyssa Al-Ashari won Mid-American Conference individual event titles on vault and balance beam, respectively, highlighting the Huskies' day at the MAC Championships Saturday in Muncie, Indiana.

In the first of seven rotations in the meet, O'Shea (Norridge, Ill./Ridgewood), a sophomore, anchored the Huskies' line-up by scoring a career-high and NIU school record-tying 9.925 on her Yurchenko one and one-half vault. NIU gymnasts previously had scored 9.925 on vault just three times in school history, and had not reached the mark in 20 years, when Kelly Kramer scored 9.925 at the 2004 MAC Championships. on March 19, 2004.

A senior from Lansing, Michigan, Al-Ashari (Grand Ledge HS) tied for first place on balance beam with a 9.900.  Al-Ashari became the first NIU gymnast to be a MAC Champion on balance beam since 2019 and is the fifth NIU beam champion all-time.  A Huskie has previously won the vault title four times, most recently in 2021 by Tara Kofmehl.

"For Alyssa to get first place on beam and Kiera to win on vault is very impressive in a meet like this," said NIU head coach Sam Morreale. "Kiera went to vault first and her score held through everybody's rotation so that makes it even more impressive. To hold that lead through six rotations is very impressive."

Al-Ashari and O'Shea both received All-MAC honors on Tuesday for their success in the regular season.

"They (Al-Ashari and O'Shea) were both second team [All-MAC] coming into the championships and actually winning the events [at the MAC Championships] is even better," Morreale said.

Overall, the Huskies scored a 194.675 which was good for a fifth-place finish.

"We had a lot of high points today," Morreale said. "It's the last meet of the year, but there are definitely a lot of things our upperclassmen can build on.  A lot of people who can contribute next season got some great experience. There were a lot of positives, but we came here to win and got fifth. We improved from last year, but we've got some work to do."

In addition to O'Shea's winning vault, Isabella Sissi (Blaine, Minn./Mounds View) scored a 9.850 and freshman Dawsyn Sallee (Versailles, Ky./Woodford County) posted a 9.800 to lead the Huskies to a score of 48.875 on the first rotation.

Al-Ashari paced the Huskies on bars with a 9.850 and finished in a tie for sixth. Alana Anderson (Joliet, Ill./Joliet West) earned a 9.725 and Natalia Kraus (Fairport, N.Y./Fairport) scored 9.700. The Huskies posted a team score of 48.625 on bars.

In addition to Al-Ashari's winning score on beam, Ellery Werner (Rhinelander, Wis./Rhinelander HS) posted a 9.850 which was good to earn a tie for sixth place in the championship meet. The Huskies were forced to count a fall on beam and totaled a team score of 48.125.

NIU closed out the meet on floor exercise with its highest score of the day with a 49.050, led by junior Emmalise Nock (Rosemount, Minn./Rosemount) who paced the Huskies with a score of 9.850. Anderson and Sallee earned scores of 9.825.

The Huskies now await NCAA Regional Qualifier Selection on Monday, March 25.

-- NIU --