Lady Raiders drop two straight

The No. 1 Northwestern women’s basketball team dropped two straight contests for the first time since 2006, and suffered the first defeat in the Bultman Center since 2008.
The women followed a 75-53 win last Friday with a 64-56 loss to No. 25 Mount Mercy on the road before suffering a 76-69 defeat at home to No. 5 Briar Cliff. Their record on the season is 3-3, 0-1 in the conference.
Wednesday nights matchup against Briar Cliff was a run-and-gun affair where 30 turnovers doomed NW. The Raiders managed to be down by only three (36-33) going into the locker room for halftime.
Shooting only 29 percent from the floor in the second half dropped the Raiders behind by as much as 18.
NW did not roll over and die despite the deficit, and came within four points with 30 seconds left, but BCU calmly made 4-5 free throws to hold on for the victory.  
Poor shooting plagued the team for the majority of the game, going 33 percent from the floor and 21 percent from three-point range. NW hammered the boards, winning the margin 50-33, with 21 rebounds coming at the offensive end.
Senior Val Kleinjan went 6-16 from behind the arc to lead the Raiders with 18 points. Junior Kendra De Jong recorded a double-double, scoring 16 points and ripping down 14 rebounds.
Senior Kami Kuhlmann scored 14 points despite a tough night shooting, and also added seven assists and five steals. Freshman Sam Kleinsasser scored 10 points from the post position.
“It’s still really early in the year,” Kuhlmann said. “So we still have lots of time to work on those things that we struggle with. Learning from our mistakes helps us get better.”
Against Mount Mercy last Saturday, the Raiders fell in a game filled with multiple runs by both squads. NW was down 31-30 at the intermission, but shot 52 percent from the field in the first half.
The Mustangs came out of the locker room with determination, going on a 10-0 run. The Raiders responded with a 14-3 scamper of their own to regain the lead 51-50. Mount Mercy took the lead with seven minutes remaining in the contest and held off numerous pushes by NW.
Kuhlmann and sophomore Alli Dunkelberger dropped 13 points each. Kleinsasser was also in double digits with 10 points. As a team, the Raiders were doomed by the three-pointer, shooting 12.5 percent from downtown.
Last Friday against Clarke, the women struggled to find a way to get their shots to fall in the first half, but recovered for a strong second half.
“At halftime we just talked about how our shots in the first half might have been wide open shots but weren’t necessarily good shots,” Kuhlmann said. “We talked about getting good ball swings and making good cuts so that we could get some easy shots and some layups.”
De Jong led the offensive attack with 20 points and six boards. Kuhlmann contributed 17 of her own, and Kleinjan drained four of six  three-pointers in her 14 points.
NW cleaned the glass for 50 rebounds in the win, compared to 38 for Clarke. Kuhlmann, Kleinsasser and junior Mel Babcock all hauled in seven rebounds
The team knows  the losses held some positives, and they are far from playing their best basketball of the year.
“Another positive,” Kuhlmann said, “is that there are definitely glimpses within that game where we do things awesome. We run the floor, we get rebounds.  We are extremely capable to do all these things and to be a stellar team. We just need to work on consistency, which will come the more we play with each other.”