Senior center Jennifer Uptmor concluded her NIU career by earning MAC First-Team All-Academic thanks to her 3.75 grade point average. This marked the first time Uptmor, who averaged four points and 4.8 rebounds per game, was named to the 10-person squad.

“Jen had a 4.0 for the past semester and that’s just the latest example of what she’s contributed to our program from a standpoint of the type of academic success we enjoyed as a team,” NIU coach Carol Owens said.

Uptmor is the first women’s basketball team member to earn First-Team Academic honors. Her academic success helped give the women’s basketball team the highest GPA among all Huskie teams with a 3.577.

Burning up the links

Senior Nick Schenk continued his stellar season with his fourth-straight top 10 finish as the NIU men’s golf team took fourth place Sunday at the El Diablo Invitational.

Schenk finished ninth individually while teammate Ethan Roush took 12th place. The Huskies finished in the top 10 for the sixth-straight time this season.

“The course played a little bit tougher today,” NIU coach John Cleary said. “It was windier today and scores were higher across the board, which didn’t hurt us. It was good to see that we can still finish strong when we don’t play our best.”

Huskies sprint through break

The NIU women’s track and field team wrapped up Spring Break by earning seven top-five finishes at the Baldy Castillo Invitational Sunday in Tempe, Ariz.

Junior sprinter Lorene Skipper led the way with three top-four finishes in the 800-meter run, 4×400 relay and 4×100 relay.

The Huskies also took top-five finishes in shot put, high jump, triple jump, 400-meter hurdles and 400-meter dash.

March Madness ties

Despite his team not playing in the NCAA Tournament, NIU men’s basketball coach Rob Judson still has a team to watch.

Judson was an assistant coach at Bradley from 1991-96.

In-state rivals

An injury-plagued gymnastics squad rallied to take second-place at the State of Illinois Classic Saturday in Normal.

No. 24 ranked University of Illinois took the team title, followed by NIU, Illinois Chicago and Illinois State. Illinois almost swept all the events until senior Ashlee Williams shared the uneven parallel bars title with a 9.57 score. The Huskies also got a third and fifth place finish by freshman Jennifer Naughton on balance beam and vault, respectively.

“Being over a point down and in fourth after the first rotation definitely wasn’t a good start,” NIU coach Mark Sontag said. “But we never gave up and I really liked the way everyone kept encouraging each other to keep fighting. It paid off. They just continue to dig deep into their pockets and pull out whatever they can.”