The Denver women’s basketball team finished their weekend home stand with two losses to North Dakota State University, and the University of North Dakota, respectively.

The two-game home slate marks the beginning of the conference play stretch of the season. Denver went into the stand with a 1-2 record in Summit League Conference play, they finished the weekend with a 1-4 record.

Thursday’s game against NDSU was a close matchup through the first three quarters. Denver held a brief lead in the first quarter at the 11-10 mark, but by the end of the first found themselves down 19-16. By halftime NDSU’s lead grew to 40-34.

Out of the halftime break, NDSU continued to widen their lead, bringing it to 54-45. Denver found some rhythm and went on a 6-0 run to make it 54-51 with a minute left in the third, but NDSU finished the quarter out with another bucket, making it 56-51 heading into the fourth.

Denver fell apart both offensively and defensively in the fourth quarter, with NDSU pulling away to win 84-63. Denver suffered most in the rebound department, with NDSU winning that category by a margin of 39-21.

After the game head coach Doshia Woods spoke on the loss: “We’re feeling good. We’re 1-3 in conference play. It’s too early to hang our heads and feel defeated,” she said. “The beauty of basketball is that we don’t have to dwell about the loss. It’s a quick turnaround. We have practice at 10 a.m. tomorrow, so we’re feeling good.”

Coach Woods continued, speaking on the young core of the roster and their continued development.

“We’re led by a young team, we’re asking our sophomores to do a lot. You can teach a lot of things, but you can’t teach experience. Rarely do you have a team where your sophomores are your captains, your leading scorers and leading rebounders,” she said.

Sophomore guard Jordan Jones finished the game with a team-high on the night of 18 points. She spoke on where the team needs to improve. 

“In the first half we only had three turnovers, which was really good. We average about 12 to 14 a game. We ended the game with 12 turnovers, so we picked up quite a bit of them in the second half,” she said. 

Despite the turnover problems Denver is having, Jones is optimistic the team can find solutions to their problems. 

“We’re feeling good. We’re excited to keep going. We want to turn the rest of the season around — conference play is a new season,” she said. 

Jones spoke on how tight this roster is, and how they all believe in each other to turn things around.

“We’ve stuck together through this whole journey. We’ve been practicing together since June, so we’re a very tight-knit team. And one thing is that we don’t give up — we stick together — so we’re going to continue to stick together and ride it out for each other,” she said. 

Saturday’s game against UND was a hard-fought battle on both sides. Denver jumped ahead to an early 10-2 lead in the first quarter, eventually ending the first with a 16-10 lead. 12 of their 16 points came from behind the arc.

Denver increased their lead early in the second quarter to 25-14. UND fought back, cutting Denver’s lead to three going into halftime. Denver was again successful from three-point territory, scoring 9 of their 14 points in the quarter from three.

Denver struggled out of the half and UND took advantage, ending the quarter with a 58-42 lead going into the fourth.

UND pulled away in the fourth quarter and Denver couldn’t fight back, ending the game with a 78-68 loss. Four Denver players finished in double figures. Senior guard Emily Counsel finished with a game-high 21 points, which included five three-pointers.

Forward Makayla Minett, guard Emily Counsel, forward Lauren With and guard Jocylen Wyatt were honored with framed jerseys in the senior day celebration after the game. They were joined by their families for a senior day photo.

Denver hits the road for their next two games, playing in South Dakota on Thursday, followed by a game against Omaha on Saturday. Both games can be streamed live here.