The No. 17 women’s basketball team had an up-and-down week with a victory at Augustana College Nov. 28 and  loss to No. 4 Thomas More University (Ky.) team Dec. 1 at Kachel Gymnasium.

After entering halftime up by one, the Warhawks outscored Augustana 23-12 in the third quarter, which helped them pull away 75-67.

Junior guard Becky Raeder led UW-W with 19 points on the night, along with sophomore guard Adriana Green, who hit a career-best of 13 points and two steals.

“We knew that Augustana really wanted a win because it was their first game on their home floor,” Raeder said. “So we knew we had to come together and play together. We rebounded well and kept them from getting offensive rebounds and putbacks.”

The Warhawks in addition out rebounded the Vikings 42-31. UW-Whitewater also had eight turnovers and scored 17 fast-break points.

Despite Augustana shooting 50 percent in the fourth quarter, UW-W went 8/12 on free throws to seal the win.

On Dec. 1 at Kachel Gymnasium, the Warhawks were held to just 27.1 percent shooting in their 69-48 loss against one of last season’s national semifinalists, Thomas More.

Senior center Becky Deichl led Whitewater with nine points, seven rebounds and one block. Senior forward Olivia Freckmann finished with eight points and eight rebounds.

“In order to be the best you have to beat the best, so I think that was a really good lesson for us,” Deichl said. “They didn’t do anything that we couldn’t, it’s just that they did all the little things well and were really disciplined. For us, this means that we really need to focus on communicating defensively. It will be really important for us to do a better job cleaning up the glass moving forward.”

The first quarter proved to make the difference, as Thomas More got off a 26-11 start. Deichl helped bring the Warhawks back to within 13 points at the end of the second, but the Saints would outscore UW-W 32-24 the rest of the way.

Head coach Keri Carollo said she was positive about the end result, even if it was not what the team was looking for.

“I’m proud of our girls that we did not give them a whole lot of transition baskets,” Carollo said.  “That was one of our goals, which was to not give them anything easy and make it hard. You can see why they have been in the final four, won many national championships and are ranked fourth in the country. They are a very good team.”

UW-W improves to 4-2 overall, and will resume non-conference play Dec. 8 against Coe College (Iowa) at Kachel Gymnasium.