UW Oshkosh women’s basketball competed against UW-Platteville (4-4) and UW-Stout (5-1) this week resulting in two losses for Oshkosh, setting the record to 6-2.

UW Oshkosh women’s basketball opened their conference with a loss against UWP by a score of 60-35, setting UWO’s record to 6-1 on Nov. 30.

The Titans opened up the game with a lead that was beginning to be overtaken by the Pioneers who were able to close the 7-0 Oshkosh lead at the beginning to just 14-11.

The shrinking Titan lead in the second quarter was due to turnovers by Oshkosh which had a presence in the first quarter, which was amplified to the point of UWP taking a lead of 25-17 by the end of the first half.

The game continued to mount and mount energy for the Pioneers who eventually closed the competition with a 25 point lead over the previously undefeated Titans.

Bridget Froehlke said that one of the problems against the Pioneers was absent team cohesion.

“We were playing our own game,” she said. “Not the team’s game in regards to our offense and defensive capabilities.”

Against Stout, UWO fared somewhat better, but still fell with a score 66-58.

In the first quarter, UWO took an early lead but stagnated during the remainder of the game as Stout upped the ante. By the Fourth quarter the teams scored 5-17 with Stout taking the quarter and the match. 

Froehlke attributed the two losses to a lack of energy in the face of adversity, and a failure to be ready to perform their best everyday.

“Right now we’re a bit in a lull,” she said. “We played better against Stout than Platteville, but there’s a lot of work to do. Some of that work is mental; we weren’t ready to play and being ready and not ready shouldn’t be an on/off switch.”

Despite the loss, the team still saw vast improvements from their previous game. Two of these were, decreasing their turnovers by more than half and tightening their score difference by a third of the prior week.

One of the reasons for this improvement, according to Froehlke, is an improved mindset in response to the UWP loss.

“We went into Stout with a mindset of toughness,” she said. “We went after loose balls, were tougher and didn’t let them take our energy down if they were performing well.”

Her drive led her to score 17 points with the assistance of her teammate.

“My teammates were the reason I had those points,” she said. “Kate Huml got me a few times. I have to credit them for getting me the ball when I was open.”

The team will venture to Florida on Dec. 19 and 20 for the Daytona Beach Shootout. They will then return to Oshkosh in the Oshkosh Arena to host the BSN Winter Classic on Dec. 29 & 30.

Until then, the team will put forth the effort not only to fix their mistakes, but to learn how to build upon their foundations. Froehlke feels that with that practice, the team will be ready for the adversity of the conference.

“Every team has to deal with adversity,” she said. “We need to go into the future learning things to get better at and we have two weeks between now and Florida, so we have time to get better. We’ll be going in hungry to learn and grow as a team and once we clean up we’re going to be right up with every other team.”