Women’s Track and Field

Taking it easy was the motto for the women’s track and field team just one week prior to the Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships.

“The week before MAC, you’re not trying to burn your kids out,” said NIU head coach Connie Teaberry. “The big dance is this weekend and that’s what we want to be ready for.”

Four Huskies took silver at the Ball State Quadrangular on Friday, while the team finished in fourth with 42 points. Western Michigan led the pack with 105.5 points, followed by Ball State with 87.5 points and Miami with 64 points.

Senior Ashley Rittenbacher finished with a time of 11:24.06 in the 3000-meter run to take second.

The 4×400-meter relay team didn’t let up with a second place finish of its own with a time of 4:01.19.

Junior Jessica Statler and senior Jennene Anthony also took silver in the high jump and weight throw respectively.

“It was great preparation for next week,” Teaberry said. “We got to see three other teams in the MAC and see what they’re doing.”

NIU went into the competition knowing that it was a tuneup for next week’s MAC Indoor Championships and had many athletes not in their regular events.

“It wasn’t really for us to go into this competition to win,” said Teaberry. “If that was the case, Nancy Nieto would’ve been in the 3000, we would have had other people in the two and other people in the one. At Central Michigan, it was more of a thing where we wanted to improve our place. This meet was more of a fine tuning meet.”

Women’s Tennis

With a clean sweep of SIU-Edwardsville 7-0 on Sunday, NIU improved to 3-3 on the season.

In No. 1 singles, senior Lilian Asuaje won in straight sets 7-6, 6-3.

Junior Brooke Forsberg and senior Nao Umemura took No. 1 doubles 8-4, while sophomore Kathryn Friedlund and freshman Emily Rogers won No. 2 doubles 8-7.

Three of the six singles matches and one of the three doubles matches were won by default for the Huskies. The Cougars only played four of their athletes.

NIU was supposed to play Western Illinois on Saturday, but due to the threat of inclement weather, it was postponed. The match has yet to be rescheduled, but the Huskies are set to play at Illinois-Chicago this Saturday.