Gymnastics ready for final home meet

By Matt Hopkinson

As women’s gymnastics prepares for its final home meet, there is a building sense of confidence but also a bit of unpredictability.

The Huskies (3-4, 1-3 MAC) will look to apply that confidence and win their final appearance at home against the visiting Eastern Michigan (3-6, 0-3 MAC) squad.

The Huskies have scored more than 194 the last three weeks, going about that process in a few different ways.

They have managed to perform the feat by hitting all 24 routines, and also managed it by counting misses and sorely underperforming on one event, and then blazing back to place in the history books in another.

The season is becoming anything but predictable; however, the results are consistent and the gymnasts are confident in their abilities.

“It definitely brings up our confidence because we know we can do in every area, we just need to put it all together,” said sophomore Kelly Nortz. “We’re getting better every week, so hopefully this Friday we will put all of it together.”

Head coach Sam Morreale believes the talent has been on display for his squad and it really is a matter of what Nortz said, and the scores and performances all uniting for one meet.

“I think the future can be any week we want to step in and do,” Morreale said. “It could be Eastern, it could be Eastern and all the way out through the rest of the season including MAC’s. We want Eastern to be the meet we go 195.500.”

Building off that want to up the scoring total, the Huskies are still chasing down a regional berth, which will require a still substantial boosting in the overall scores. Morreale believes while it’s a good thing to show the consistency they have the past few weeks, more needs to be done for that national spotlight to shine on his NIU squad.

“The consistency of that being our bottom right now is a good thing,” Morreale said. “We still are chasing a regional berth, that is in the 195 marks. That’s where we have to get as quick as we can and post a few scores in there.”

Coming into Victor E. Court, the Eagles are coming off a score of 193.350. Score-wise, this Eastern Michigan team is a big step down in competition level from the Huskies’ previous three opponents. Morreale believes his team has the skills to notch a victory for the first time in three weeks, but knows it’s never a given.

“We at least feel like going into this meet if we do do our stuff, we’re going to win,” Morreale said. “That’s at least our confidence from that side, but nobody in our conference is a team we can take lightly.”