The Marquette women’s basketball team extended its losing streak to three games Saturday in a 72-63 loss to DePaul at the Al McGuire Center.
“It was another tough battle, another game that we’re going to continue to talk about. We had a lot of missed opportunities,” Coach Terri Mitchell said.
Marquette was down 11-10 with 15:36 to go in the first half. At that point Marquette went on an 8-0 run that was stopped by DePaul at the 11:15 mark, with the Golden Eagles up 18-12.
The Golden Eagles got the lead up to 10 with 8:31 left in the first half, 27-17. Then the Blue Demons went on a 15-6 run to end the half, capped off by a baseline jumper from freshman forward Katherine Harry as time expired on the first half.
DePaul began the second half with possession of the basketball, scored on that possession to go up 34-33, and never looked back. The Golden Eagles tried to play catch-up the rest of the game.
Mitchell decided to bench senior guard Lauren Thomas-Johnson for the beginning of the game and start junior guard Courtney Weibel. Mitchell said she was trying to open up her team’s inside game by getting the 3-point shooting Weibel into the game right away.
In the first 1:45 of the game, Weibel didn’t disappoint. She scored six of the team’s first eight points on 3-point field goals (2-2). But the rest of the game she went 0-4 from beyond the arc as DePaul locked her down on defense.
Junior guard Angel Robinson and senior guard Lauren Thomas-Johnson led the way for the Golden Eagles, each with 13 points. Robinson had four points in the first half and nine in the second. Thomas-Johnson had nine points in the first half and four in the second.
Junior forward Paige Fiedorowicz was the only other Golden Eagle in double digits with 10.
“Paige knows her opportunities,” Mitchell said. “She doesn’t go into games thinking she has to score but she just lets it come to her. When it comes to her (like it did today), she will get scores.”
Fiedorowicz said Weibel and Thomas-Johnson’s shooting early on in the game opened up the lane for her to contribute.
“Sometimes I’m just more of a role player, getting other people open,” Fiedorowicz said. “I think my team did a good job in recognizing where my opportunities were (today). (DePaul was) going out on shooters – Courtney and Lauren both hit a few early – so that left some mismatches down low.”
In their losing streak, the Golden Eagles have been down one or winning at halftime, but then fall behind in the second half. Mitchell wasn’t sure what the difference was between halves for her team today or throughout the losing streak.
“If I had that answer we’d probably have more wins because it’s been how we’ve played second halves … during the phase we’re in right now,” Mitchell said. “You can see in the second half we’ve been struggling and especially on defense.”
