UIC hosted Northern Illinois in its first home meet of the 2018 season.  The Huskies earned an advantage on the bars and carried that margin to a 195.025-193.625 win at UIC Pavilion Sunday afternoon.

"Scoring in the 193's is still good for the start of the season, but now that we're in to the middle part of the season, we'd like to see a jump in our score," co-head coach Peter Jansson said.

Though the Flames posted their second-highest score of the year, and improved by a tenth from the first meet with NIU on Jan. 7, the Huskies avenged their team loss in that season opening meet.  After taking the lead after two rotations, they posted three scores of 9.825 or higher on the last two rotations to keep the Flames from coming back.

"It was fun to be back home," Jansson continued.  "We had a good crowd including over 30 alumni from 1977 all the way through last season.  It was lots of fun to see so many alums spanning the last 40 years of UIC gymnastics."

Rotation 1 – Vault

• Mikailla Northern and Kayla Baddeley finished second and third, respectively.  Northern earned a 9.8 from both judges, tying her season high, while Baddeley posted a 9.775.
• Ashley Albrecht set a season high with a 9.750.
• Katie Snyder and Riley Mahoney also contributed to the team score of 48.725.  Serena Baker competed on the vault for the first time.  Her score was dropped.
• "We performed very good on the vault, beam, and floor," Jansson observed. 
• "We're doing very good gymnastics.  I'm happy with our progress.  It's the time of the year when we need to hit all four events to be competitive."

Rotation 2 – Bars

• Albrecht paced the squad as the leadoff performer, scoring 9.750 and finishing third.
• Snyder and Northern each scored 9.700, tying for fourth.
• UIC had to count a fall, lowering their team score and putting them behind Northern Illinois after two rotations, 97.450-96.600.
• Jansson lamented, "The bars were not indicative of how good we are, but we have to show up on the day of the meet to prove it.  That's the only place where as a team we were disappointed.  If we had performed better, it would have been a much closer meet."

Rotation 3 – Beam

• Baddeley, who had to miss the last meet with the flu, returned to achieve the Flames' highest score on the balance beam.  Her 9.800 was just 0.025 off her season high, and the third place score in the meet.
• Northern scored 9.700, and Dani Maciel, Toni Alicke, and Riley Mahoney were tightly bunched with scores between 9.650 and 9.675.
• Alicke's score counted toward the team total for the first time.

Rotation 4 – Floor

• Alicke's 9.775 was good for the second place score.
• Baddeley and Northern also contributed scores of 9.700 or higher.
• The teams tied for the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth places.  NIU's Anna Martucci won the event with a 9.850.

All-Around

• Northern finished third in the all-around with a total of 38.900.
• Albrecht posted a season high with a 38.775 all-around score.
• NIU slotted into the top two spots.

Up Next

• The Flames will return to action in one week's time.
• UIC will travel to the Show Me State for a meet at MIC rival Southeast Missouri State.