Gymnastics head coach Mark Sontag knows it only takes one poor performance to lose first place.

The Huskies struggled on the balance beam and the uneven parallel bars and placed fifth out of seven in the MAC tournament.

“We missed on bars and beam,” Sontag said. “One miss might separate first from fifth.”

NIU (2-7 overall, 2-4 MAC) scored a 47.275 on uneven parallel bars and a 46.9 on the balance beam, which both ranked near the bottom for total team points in an individual event.

The Huskies made up the difference in scores with strong performances on the vault and floor exercise.

A score of 48.525 on the vault tied for the third best team score in the event.

Despite the struggles, Sontag said the Huskies still did a good job considering the competition.

“There are national-level routines being thrown around at every event,” Sontag said.

Freshman Jennifer Naughton and senior Ashlee Williams both placed in the top five in individual events.

Naughton tied for second in the vault with a score of 9.85 and placed 20th in the beam.

Williams placed fourth in the uneven parallel bars with a score of 9.725 and eighth in the floor exercise with a score of 9.775.

Other Huskies scoring highly in individual events were sophomore Amber Whitecotton, who placed eighth in the vault with a score of 9.75 and junior Meghan Cronin, who placed sixth in the beam with a score of 9.65.

“Our plan was to hit 24 of 24 routines,” Sontag said. “It didn’t quite work out that way, but we had no expectations other than that.”