The Hillsdale women’s basketball team returned to the Mitten with two losses after a cold weekend in the Upper Peninsula. The Chargers fell to the 11th-ranked Michigan Technological University Huskies 88-57 on Thursday, and lost to the Northern Michigan University Wildcats 79-51 on Saturday. This is the Chargers’ second losing weekend of the season. The team’s first occurred late last month when NMU and Michigan Tech beat the Chargers at home.
The Chargers have slipped to a 15-8 overall record, and 11-8 in the GLIAC. While the team stands fifth in the North Division, they’re expecting a lower seed going into the conference tournament.
“Going into the weekend we had hopes of finishing pretty high in the GLIAC standings,” senior Kadie Lowery said. “But with these two losses we are probably looking at the one of the bottom seeds out of the eight.”
The Chargers made the 10-hour drive to the tip of the U.P. to Houghton, Michigan, on Wednesday and expected to return home from Marquette on Saturday after playing the Wildcats. The weekend was complicated by a snowstorm, and the women were stuck in the U.P. until Sunday.
“There was a huge snowstorm Saturday night that closed most of the main highways causing us to have to stay an extra day,” junior Kayla Geffert said. “Needless to say it was a pretty exhausting trip, but we are really happy to be back.”
When the Chargers played the Huskies and the Wildcats last month, the losses were within ten points. This weekend was much different.
“It was a very difficult place to play, a very difficult trip and we just did not play our best basketball,” head coach Claudette Charney said.
On Thursday night, the Huskies froze the Chargers with a 26-0 run in the first half. The Chargers committed 13 of their 20 turnovers before halftime, which the Huskies converted into 19 points.
“Against Tech, we let the game get away from us in the very beginning,” junior Kelsey Cromer said. Thursday’s game was Cromer’s first time back on the court since late January.
Lowery managed to rack up 17 points for her team, but the Chargers’ 38.5 shooting percentage did not stand up to the Huskies’ 53.5 percent.
Charney said she doesn’t know if Thursday’s outcome carried over to Saturday, but that afternoon the Wildcats pulled a similar game out from under the Chargers.
The Chargers were unusually outrebounded by NMU, and shot 33.8 percent from the field. The Wildcats led 31-19 going into halftime, then outscored the Chargers 19-3 from the free-throw line in the last 20 minutes. Lowery led her team again with 12 points.
Tonight the Chargers host Ferris State University at 6 p.m. and then travel to Grand Valley State University to play the Lakers on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Chargers beat both of these teams in a winning weekend last month.
“These teams are not going to roll over and die,” Cromer said. “They are going to give it all they have since it is towards the end of the season, and we will have to play hard and execute for 40 minutes in order to win.”
Charney said the team is primarily focusing on the game against Ferris, because the Bulldogs are barely holding onto their chance to make the tournament.
“If we want to achieve our goals, which I hope are still fresh in our minds, then we have the ability to really do some things this year by winning these games this weekend,” Charney said. “It’s the biggest week of the year.”