The UW-Eau Claire women’s basketball season for 2024-2025 has come to an end. 

On Saturday, Feb. 22, the Blugolds traveled to play a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) match against the UW-Whitewater Warhawks for their last game and it ended in a 65-56 loss.

UW-Whitewater, ranked No. 24, now has an overall season record of 19-6 and a conference record of 9-5. UW-Eau Claire finished with an overall season record of 8-17 and a conference record of 3-11.

According to UW-Eau Claire women’s basketball head coach Tonja Englund, the Blugolds have a history with the Warhawks. 

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Three years ago, UW-Eau Claire defeated UW-Whitewater to capture the NCAA tournament automatic bid. Englund said this occurred during the first season of some of the current fourth-year players.

“A Whitewater-Eau Claire game is really important … you really have to understand that Whitewater does a lot of pressing,” Englund said. “We had a lot of our more experienced players out on the floor who have been in those types of Whitewater games.”

In the first quarter of the game, the Warhawks outscored the Blugolds 10-7, maintaining a 6-1 run that lasted for the remaining six minutes of the period.

Forward Kailey Tulachka, a second-year physical education student, said that the team often struggles getting into help on defense.

“Offensively, we tend to use our full shot clock and I think we need to be better at efficiently getting the ball up and passing the ball more,” Tulachka said. “Our communication is there, so once we get that taken care of, I think we’ll be right there.”

The Blugolds were able to catch up to the Warhawks in the second quarter, starting with two free throws by third-year Kyla Overskei and a jump shot by Lucia Hauge, now only down by one point at the 7 minute mark.

Overall, the Blugolds outscored the Warhawks in the paint 8-2 for the second quarter, but ended the half in a five-point deficit after the opposing team made seven out of eight free throws. The Blugolds went into halftime down 27-22.

“Our goal was just to go out there and play basketball,” Tulachka said. “We had nothing really to lose and the most we could do was be a pain in Whitewater’s butt. That’s the mentality we went out with.”

In the third quarter, UW-Whitewater outscored UW-Eau Claire 10-2 in the paint, placing the Blugolds at an 11-point deficit going into the final period.

In the fourth and final quarter, the Blugolds scored 20 points whereas the Warhawks scored 18 points. Seven of those were from Reanna Hutchinson, who was the leading scorer for the Blugolds overall with 14 points in her 27 minutes of play.

Despite their efforts in the last quarter, the Blugolds fell short with a final score of 65-56. The team finished 7th place in the conference, just one spot outside of the WIAC Tournament.

“We’re never satisfied with losing a game, but for me to see the progress we’ve made from start to finish in the year … I will point to next year and say that, with a year of experience, that has to be us on top and winning those types of games,” Englund said.

This year was Englund’s 25th season as UW-Eau Claire’s head coach of women’s basketball. She said that the team has been really focusing on their culture and family atmosphere, which the three seniors – Katie Pampuch, Anna Koth and Hauge – contributed to while leading.

This season was also the Blugolds’ first year playing in the Sonnentag Event Center. Englund said they hope to have the opportunity to host playoff games and NCAA teams there in the future.

For now, Englund said the team will take some “much-needed” time off.

“The group will take a bit of time to rest, but we’ll get right back at it and be very focused,” Englund said. “While some other teams are going to play out their season, that’s when we’ll really focus on getting better.”

Matczak can be reached at matczaij9603@uwec.edu.