Struggles continued for NIU gymnastics on Sunday afternoon, as the Huskies traveled to Mount Pleasant, Mich. to take on one of the MAC’s best programs in Central Michigan.

NIU had a rough go of it, though, losing to the Chippewas, 195.750-189.100.

The Huskies’ (1-4 overall, 1-2 MAC) young lineup was outclassed all afternoon, as they failed to place fifth or higher in more than one event. NIU’s highest finisher was on vault, where senior Holly Reichard placed fifth with a 9.725.

Reichard finished with an all-around score of 37.925.

Huskie all-arounder Tanya Rachan was again unable to compete at full strength this weekend due to injury. Going only on balance beam, the junior scored a team-high 9.650, good for seventh place overall.

“Tanya came in and did a nice job on beam,” said NIU head coach Mark Sontag. “That’s the consistency that you want to see from the upperclassmen as you try to figure out the freshmen.”

CMU (8-0, 2-0) had only four gymnasts place underneath NIU gymnasts in any particular event.

Despite the disparity in the scorebooks, Sontag saw promise in the Huskies’ performance overall.

“A couple of weeks ago, when things didn’t go the way we hoped to start out, we didn’t perform at our best the rest of the way,” Sontag said. “Today we went all the way to the last routine. A performance like today is what this team needs to do to grow as a team and be able to start building on our score.”