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On Thursday, Feb. 27, the UW-Whitewater women’s basketball team faced UW-Oshkosh in the second round of the WIAC tournament in Whitewater. The game was close in the first half, but got away from the Warhawks in the second Half. UW-Oshkosh went home with the win; the final score was 65-81.
This leaves the Whitewater Warhawks with the No. 4 ranking and means that they do not qualify for the Division III national tournament as an automatic qualifier, but rather an At-Large bid. They await Monday’s announcement of the tournament bracket to see who they will face.
The match started evenly, as both teams were shooting the lights out, Oshkosh took over when they hit five three-pointers in the first quarter. The second quarter was when we could see the Warhawks falling behind.
“We stopped playing defense. They were shooting lights out from 3, and we weren’t adjusting.” said senior Becky Raeder. The score at halftime was 35-48 Oshkosh, as the Warhawks hope was to come back from this lead, but didn’t execute.
“We played selfish. There were five people on the court, but we weren’t playing together, we played 1-on-1,” said Raeder.
Her team couldn’t hit a shot coming out of halftime, and gave up a 7-0 run before they got on the board in the second half.
It’s not the first time the two squads have had to deal with blowouts in the conference tourney, according to Oshkosh head coach Brad Fischer.
“Two years ago they beat us where they kinda blew us out, so both teams have seen it before,” he said in a post-game interview. “They had a bad quarter, and it just kind of snowballed them.”
While the score was certainly unexpected, Fischer attributed it to the fact that Oshkosh was in a rhythm, after beating up on UW-Stout earlier in the week.
“I think having the bye sometimes hurts, because you’re a little bit rusty after sitting. We got to play Tuesday, and in some ways that’s a little advantage for us,” he said.
The Warhawks expect to qualify for the National Tournament on Monday, where they find out who they could face. They are anxious to get on with the season, and move on from this loss.
“You can’t let one game define you,” said Raeder.
“There’s so much more that can still happen this season.”
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