MONMOUTH, Ore. – Western Oregon women's basketball nearly handed Western Washington their first conference loss of the season, but the Wolves ultimately fell 61-59 on Saturday evening.
 
The Wolves fell to 2-10 overall and 1-3 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, while the Vikings improved to 8-4 and 4-0 in the GNAC.
 
For Western Oregon, everything was going their way as they held the lead until the third quarter, but Western Washington made the comeback at the end of the fourth.
 
"What a heartbreaker," head coach Holli Howard-Carpenter said. "Everything on the stat sheet tells me we should have won this game. Even after looking at the last play, we had three wide open looks and just didn't make the right reads or passes. It came down to a few defensive breakdowns where we lost shooters and then had some costly turnovers."
 
The Wolves had a fiery start to the game as they finished the first quarter with a field goal percentage of 57.1. Western Oregon continued to press in the second quarter, generating their largest lead of the game at 14 points.
 
Western Oregon went into the locker room at the half with a 32-22 advantage over the Vikings. In the first half, they overpowered in rebounds with 21, compared to Western Washington's seven. The Wolves finished all seven of their free throws, and they had eight points off of turnovers as well as eight second chance points.
 
The second half started off strong for Western Oregon as they obtained a 14-point lead once again in the third quarter. Everything turned around, however, when the Vikings made a significant push in the fourth quarter, taking the lead for the first time since the beginning of the game. The game turned into a back-and-forth scoring battle in the last three minutes. 20 seconds remained on the clock as the Wolves trailed behind with the final shot, but the basket never came.
 
Emily Howey led the Wolves with 12 points, while Sydney Azorr posted 10, and Natalie DeLonge had nine.
 
"Our consistency is so much better than it was early in the season, and it's nice to be able to count on my team to execute a game plan," Howard-Carpenter said. "Emily and Natalie have had a string of nice games, and that's really opening up things on the outside for our guards. Sydney is absolutely filling up the stat sheet and playing with a ton of confidence."
 
Ultimately, the Wolves shot 40.8 percent from the field and went 14 for 18 in free throws. They outrebounded the Vikings, 36-19, where DeLonge added eight rebounds for the night, and Azorr had seven.
 
"Despite the outcome, I'm extremely proud of how we played," Howard-Carpenter said. "One of our keys going into tonight was to rebound, and we did a phenomenal job against a big, physical team. We knocked down our free throws and had an opportunity at the end. Western Washington turned up the pressure in their press, and we just didn't handle it well. That's something we will need to fix before heading to Anchorage next week."
 
Western Oregon heads on the road to Alaska Anchorage on Thursday, January 7, and Alaska Fairbanks on Saturday, January 9.