The UW-Whitewater women’s basketball team defeated UW-Stout in a close game that ended 78-75. This WIAC game was at home and their 19th win this season.

The first half started off a little slow, being pretty back and forth as far as score and playing. The half ended with the team behind by two points 35-37. 

“I felt like Stout did a really great job of coming out super fast and kind of setting the tone with how super aggressive they wanted to be,” head coach Keri Carollo said. “We were kind of on the backs of our heels defensively, so at halftime, we talked a lot about not being passive, being aggressive. We talked about attacking them defensively, and seeing what can happen if we kind of split roles a little bit. It seemed to work, and then we started hitting some shots, too. That was big.”

That strategy switch during half time is what led to the team lowering the gap and being up by 10 points at the end of the quarter. A big part of that switch up was senior forward Abby Belschner, who had seven rebounds and 17 points.

“I think it was all around good. I tried to work the ball and try to do my thing under the basket,” Belschner said. “I wanted to keep it that way the whole game, and be consistent since free throws aren’t my thing.”

This was also a big night for the other senior Abi Baumgartner and graduate student Yssa Sto. Domingo because it was senior night. Both players also had solid games, with Baumgartner getting four points and two rebounds, and with Sto. Domingo scored nine points and got four rebounds. 

“We are all working on the few goals we have since this is our last season, and mine is getting a dunk,” Belschner said.

One of the challenging parts of this game was some conflicting calls made by the referees in the second half that amped up both teams’ aggressions.

“It’s hard because those kinds of calls can definitely change the momentum of a game,” Carollo said. “I credit our upperclassmen and our team for just really focusing on what they can control. We talk a lot about how officials are going to make calls and you sometimes have no control over it. So you just have to focus on what we can do to overcome that and I thought we did a really nice job of that. It was tough. I mean, it was all super physical, so I’m sure as an official that has to be a really hard game to officiate.”

In the end though, the team made it through the pressure and fought back. The Warhwaks also kept calm through Stout’s repeated fouling in the fourth quarter that was meant to push the possession away from Whitewater. 

They are now looking ahead to their next game to take place on Feb. 15th at UW-Platteville, which Whitewater lost to in their last game against them.

“Wednesday we got to win,” Carollo said. “We are going to Platteville, and we lost to them at our place pretty bad, so we got to be able to come out and beat them on the road. But then we’ll see what happens from there.”