DeKALB | After scoring a career-high 20 points Saturday to help snap Ohio’s 14-game home winning streak, NIU freshman guard Cody Yelder was named the MAC West Player of the Week for the first time in his career.

The Richards High (Calumet Park, Ill.) graduate went 7 of 7 from the foul line with less than one minute left in the game to help seal NIU’s second win in a row.

Earlier in the week, Yelder scored nine points and had three rebounds in only 15 minutes of action in a win over Bowling Green.

After missing 10 games due to injury, Yelder averaged 14.5 points and shot 69.2 percent from the field in two games off the bench for the Huskies.

Season-best still second best

The NIU gymnastics team (4-3, 0-2) dropped a dual meet to MAC front-runner Kent State (6-2, 3-0) Sunday afternoon at the Convocation Center, despite recording a season-best score of 192.550.

NIU’s Leah Johnson had her most complete performance of the year for the Huskies, collecting an overall score of 38.550. The sophomore tied for second on the vault with a score of 9.775. On the bars, she managed a score of 9.625, while scoring a 9.600 on the beam.

“I like the direction we’re going with this team,” NIU head coach Mark Sontag said. “I see a lot of improvement in our overall performance. We did a better job of execution. It was not a perfect meet, but it was good to have a pretty good outing versus the No. 1 team in the MAC.”

One for the win column

The NIU men’s tennis team recorded its first win of the young season by defeating Bradley Sunday afternoon in DeKalb.

The Huskies dominated the Braves, winning six of seven matches to take a 6-1 victory. The win improves NIU’s record to 1-3.

“We played pretty well today,” said head coach Pontus Hiort. “We got off to a fast start and kept it up through the entire match.”

The Huskies will be back in action Saturday afternoon when they host Western Illinois.

At home in the top 20

The NIU women’s track and field team earned three top-20 finishes over the weekend at the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa.

Carolyn Vasquez led the way for the Huskies, turning in a time of 1:26.90 in the 600-yard run, finishing runner-up in her heat and eighth overall.

The other top finisher on the track was Lorene Skipper, who placed 16th in the 800m race with a time of 2:11.59.

On the field side, Ashley Morrow finished 19th in the weight throw and 21st in the shot put for NIU.

“I’m very proud of our ladies,” NIU head coach Connie Teaberry said. “It was a very challenging meet, and a lot of them were able to step up their performance and carry through with some great efforts.”