UW-River Falls led the UW Oshkosh women’s basketball team by 14 points at halftime, but the Titans came all the way back in the 12-point win at Page Arena on Saturday.
The No. 16 nationally ranked Titans (19-4, 10-2 WIAC) shot 45.6 percent (26 of 57) from the field, 37.5 percent (six of 16) from three and 81.8 percent (nine of 11) from the line, leading the Falcons (14-9, 5-7 WIAC) in all three shooting categories. They also outrebounded River Falls 34-28, scored 15 and 36 points off turnovers and in the paint to the Falcons’ 10 and 26 and committed just eight turnovers against the Falcons’ 12.
Kennedy Osterman and Avery Poole both scored 17 points in the contest. Osterman made all three of her three-point attempts and led the team with nine rebounds. Bridget Froehlke and Olivia Argall each recorded 10 points as the next highest scorers.
UW Oshkosh scored the four points of the game, extending its lead to 8-2 with 5:24 and held the edge until a 7-0 run by UW-River Falls flipped the lead to 17-12 to end the first quarter.
The Falcons continued their scoring run in the second quarter with the first 10 points before Kayce Vaile got the Titans back on the board with a jump shot at 5:20. Oshkosh scored the next five points, cutting the deficit down to just six points with 3:05 left in the quarter.
The Falcons again ended the quarter with a scoring run, this time for eight points, ending the half with a 34-20 edge.
While the Titans never scored more than five points in a row in the entirety of the third quarter, they slowly chipped away at River Falls’s lead and tied the game up on an Argall three-point shot with 1:05 to go, and Macy Nilsen made a layup and a free throw at the end of the quarter to retain the edge.
Two free throws from Osterman tied it back up at 51 with 6:52 left in the game and Froehlke made a three to give Oshkosh its first lead since the first quarter.
Oshkosh never gave the lead up the rest of the night, going on 8 and 10-point runs to take a 14-point lead with 28 seconds to go. Olivia Hoerl made a layup at 12 seconds to decrease Oshkosh’s lead to 12 points by the time the final buzzer sounded.
The Titans return to Kolf Sports Center on Wednesday to face UW-La Crosse (11-12, 4-8 WIAC) at 7 p.m. Oshkosh defeated the Eagles 68-56 in the teams’ first meeting of the season on Jan. 17 at Mitchell Fieldhouse.
