The UW-Whitewater women’s basketball team hosted a non-conference top 10 matchup against the Illinois Wesleyan Titans Tuesday, Nov. 26. The Warhawks came into the game ranked fourth in the nation according to D3hoops.com, with the Titans a few spots down the board at No. 8. Dating back almost 11 years to the day started Whitewater’s 11-0 winning streak against Illinois Wesleyan, a matchup that occurred around the same time yearly. The Warhawks have faced the Titans 16 times and are 13-3, 7-2 at home, 6-1 on the road. These two teams always play each other tough, and this game ensured nothing short of that.
Seniors Kacie Carollo, Maggie Trautsch, Mallory Oloffson and Katie Hildebrandt accompanied sophomore Bri McCurdy as head coach Keri Carollo’s starting five and jumped out to a narrow 15-14 lead, seven minutes into the ballgame. However, the Warhawks wound up dropping the game 84-78 in a back-and-forth battle. Down 46-40 at the half, coach Carollo told her team to play their game and not allow themselves to turn into their worst enemy.
“We knew exactly what they were going to do, we just had to settle into the pace of the game and be able to execute and not get frazzled because their pressure was so tough,” coach Carollo said.
Whitewater trailed by as many as 11, giving up a 12-1 run out of the break. They dominated in the paint, outscoring the Titans 40-28 and tallied 23 points on fastbreaks, compared to the Titans three. But the Warhawks didn’t let up, regaining the lead, 57-56, with 7:57 to go in the game off of a nice McCurdy cut to the basket. 23 seconds later, Kacie Carollo drilled a three pointer to go up 60-59. With 5:28 to play, the score showed a tie at 66. After a couple of baskets made and free throws converted, Illinois Wesleyan led 73-72 with 3:35 remaining. From then on, the Titans did not give up their lead and gave the green and white a great ranked victory on the road, just under three hours north. Coach Carollo viewed the second half as both positive and negative, but that is the result you are going to get when given the circumstances.
“I thought in the second half we did a much better job [of playing our game], but we didn’t score for stretches, so it was just tough. When you’re playing another top 10 team, it’s gonna be like this,” coach Carollo said. “It’s gonna come down to the last few minutes and that’s what you expect from both programs. And both programs really battled, and they just came out on top in this. When you want to be a top 10 team, you have to be able to do the little things.”
Kacie Carollo led the way in this one for the purple and white, shooting 10-19 from the field, 2-10 from three, and four of five from the line, totaling 26 points on the night. She added 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals, and a block to her stat line. McCurdy and Oloffson contributed 16 points each. McCurdy shot 6-9 from the field, 3-5 from beyond the arc, and made her only free throw attempt. She had 2 rebounds and 2 assists. Amazing on and off-ball defense occurred throughout the game for McCurdy.
Oloffson shot efficiently from the field, going 8-10. She brought down 4 rebounds, had 1 assist, 2 blocks and 2 steals. Trautsch and Hildebrandt had 7 points each, with Trautsch having 6 rebounds and 2 assists, along with knocking down a triple. Hildebrandt added 4 boards, 3 assists, 3 blocks and 4 steals to her night. Junior Logan Lowry came off the bench for 17 minutes for the Warhawks, providing 2 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks and a steal. Sophomore Mia Gillis contributed, making 2-4 from the field.
The Warhawks couldn’t quite do enough to come away with a win, and the players know that. They know their opponents have their game against Whitewater circled on their calendars.
“Every team we play this year, we are their number one team to beat; public enemy number one,” Kacie Carollo said. “We have to be relentless offensively and defensively for 40 minutes to win. I think we saw a lot of that, but it is definitely something that we can work on. Everyone wants to beat us, so we just have to come out ready to go.”
It felt as if Whitewater beat itself. They knew they had a fight on their hands from tip-off, making it no easy task to topple the Titans. The squad did not come out as hot as one would have hoped.
“I think we started a little slow, and that just bit us. But we will improve from it,” McCurdy said.
The night also had positive takeaways, such as effort and the way the team stayed level-headed and in the game against a tough opponent.
“I’m glad that we fought back and came back when things weren’t going our way, but we just didn’t finish,” Trautsch said.
The Warhawk’s next home game comes Saturday, Dec. 7 as they host a parents’ night showdown at Kachel Gymnasium against Knox College.
