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| Northern Illinois senior gymnast Natalie Blum hopes to advance to regionals in the floor exercise at today's MAC Championships. (Scott Walstrom – NIU Media Services) |
DeKALB – There's something about Natalie Blum when she performs her floor exercise routine.
The consistent success of the Northern Illinois senior is one thing. That's something she hopes to continue at today's Mid-American Conference Gymnastic Championships at Bowling Green.
It's her approach to the event and the constant smile she keeps on for her entire routine that sticks out to most.
"I like to perform and I feel like I can show off my personality the most on floor," Blum said. "I get to play with the crowd more."
NIU coach Mark Sontag calls Blum's routine "quick and fun."
"No matter how many times I watch that routine, I always end up with a smile on my face, even in the gym, every time," Sontag said.
Blum has averaged a 9.785 in the floor exercise this season and hopes to compete in the floor at the NCAA Regionals on April 10 at the University of Missouri. Right now, she says she believes she is on the bubble on qualifying for regionals and could get there with a solid performance today. She has scored a 9.8 in the event in each of the past four meets.
Another score like that could push her off the bubble and into regionals.
"I'm just going to try and go out there and do the best I can and do what I normally do," Blum said.
Sontag says that with Blum's performance style, she's more than capable of reaching her goal.
"Some people just feel it out there," he said. "They can feel the music and they can move with it. Their timing is just right. They hit the poses just at the right time with the music. No matter whether you know gymnastics or not, you know it's a good performance."
The Huskies finished third last season at the MAC Championships behind Kent State and Central Michigan and went 3-4 against MAC teams this season.
Sontag expects his team to compete with those teams today.
"If practice has been any indication, I expect a pretty solid performance all the way through," Sontag said. "We had a couple of days where we had some people falling on things they usually don't and kind of like, 'Oh, MACs are here type of days.' Reality set in. But we worked through those with no problem."
