Coming off of its loss two weeks ago at Central Michigan, the NIU gymnastics team (1-4 overall, 1-2 MAC) is set to take on conference rival Western Michigan (5-4 Overall 2-0 MAC) on the road Sunday.

Despite the loss two weeks ago, NIU head coach Mark Sontag said he saw a lot of good things from his team.

On top of that, he says they had two hard weeks of practice that the team really benefited from.

“Having last weekend off helped us a lot,” Sontag said. “We worked really hard in practice and we made some big strides these last two weeks.”

Junior Ashley Guerra agreed with Sontag. With the extra week of practice, Guerra said she also believes that the team has been improving.

“We have cleaned up on a lot of the little things,” Guerra said. “We just need to be able to focus and not make mistakes that take away from our score.”

It wasn’t just extra practice that the time off gave the Huskies. The extra week also helped the team get healthy, as NIU has suffered from injuries all year.

Now, it seems, some of the gymnasts are working their way back to competition.

“It has been really hard without them,” Guerra said. “But we have battled through it, and the girls filling in did a great job and they stepped up for the team.”

Sontag said that, while the young gymnasts have stepped in admirably, he is excited to get his experienced gymnasts back.

“Getting some of the girls back is good news for us and it will help us going into the post-season,” Sontag said. “I am really looking forward to seeing them take the next step. I want to see them take their performance to the next level.”