After a four-game losing streak spanning Jan. 10-19, the DU women’s basketball team is now boasting a three-game winning streak at home after defeating New Mexico State on Jan. 26 and then topping Texas San Antonio and Texas State last week. The wins bring the Pioneers to an 11-11 overall record with a 6-5 record in the Western Athletic Conference.
“It’s the start of the second round of conference play, so every game is important as far as making a move to be in the upper half of the conference, which is definitely our goal right now,” said head coach Kerry Cremeans.
The Pioneers kicked things off on Thursday with a 53-49 win over Texas San Antonio (UTSA). Two days later, they pulled out another win, topping Texas State 75-62.
“A couple games ago, we were on a losing streak, losing by two or three points, so it’s nice for us to show that we can pull out a close one,” said sophomore guard Morgan Van Riper-Rose. “We stepped up big in the last couple of minutes just hitting free throws and getting stops on defense.”
Stepping up for the Pioneers was the team’s only senior, Emiko Smith, who led the team in scoring with 15 points and was named the WAC Player of the Week after her weekend performance. She was followed by freshman Kailey Edwards with 11 points and sophomore Theresa Wirth with eight points.
Rebounding for the Pioneers was junior Maiya Michel, who executed a total of 12 rebounds, nine of which were defensive. Overall, the team was able to outperform the Roadrunners in rebounds 40-29.
“To hold a team like UTSA to under 50 points is just a great defensive effort; they’re the best defensive team in our conference,” said Cremeans. “We knew that offensively it would be a struggle, but we executed late in the game and got the ball in the right players’ hands, which allowed us to hit some big free throws.”
Late execution was not a problem in the game against Texas State on Saturday as the Pioneers quickly shot to a 10-point lead after five minutes of the first half. By halftime, the team was boasting a 20-point lead of 48-28.
It was a high-scoring game for a few players, such as Edwards and Van Riper-Rose, who scored 15 and 14 points, respectively. Freshman Michaela Neuhaus contributed 13 points, and Smith tacked on 12 points while adding 11 assists for the team.
“We shot the ball with a lot of confidence tonight. It became contagious,” said Cremeans. “I’m proud of the fight that the team showed and how they executed the game plan.”
The Pioneers were able to improve their shooting percentage against Texas State with a 48.3 percent compared to their 43.2 percent against UTSA earlier in the week.
“That’s ultimately what you want as a coach, just to continue to get better each week, and I really feel that we are doing that,” said Cremeans.
Looking towards the upcoming week, the team is set to travel to Seattle on Thursday. Seattle is currently second in rank in conference play with an overall record of 11-9 and 8-3 in the WAC.
Seattle was previously on a seven-game winning streak until they were defeated by UTSA, who was recently topped by Denver. Most recently, Seattle has lost close games to San Jose State and Utah State, both with single-digit differences in the final score.
The Pioneers will have to look out for Seattle’s Daidra Brown, who recently scored a career-high of 24 points against San Jose State. Kacie Powell leads the team in scoring with 337 points and also in rebounding with 198 so far this season.
According to Cremeans, the Pioneers are looking to go into the rest of the conference season playing solid basketball and refraining from repeating any mistakes made earlier in the season.
“From here on out, every game is a big game,” said Van Riper-Rose. “We’re working on being able to score and defend one-on-one, and also just a toughness factor that I think we were missing in the beginning of the season.”
