The UW-Eau Claire women’s basketball team fell to Wartburg College (Iowa) 65-47 Saturday at Levick Arena in Waverly, Iowa. This brings the Blugolds season record to 3-3.

The Blugolds started the game off strong, as they only trailed by only a single point (28-27) going into the locker room at halftime. The game would quickly turn against Eau Claire in the second half, however, as the Blugold women were outscored 18-12 in the third quarter, and 19-8 in the fourth quarter. This has become a recurring theme for Eau Claire, as they have shown to have been taken out of games early in the second half.

Leading the way for the Blugolds on offense were starters Anna Graaskamp and Hallee Hoeppner. Graaskamp scored a team high 16 points on 5-17 shooting, and Hoeppner scored 13 points on 4-12 shooting.

The entire Eau Claire team struggled on offense in this game, as the team posted a field goal percentage of only 29.1 percent. Of those shots taken, 28 of them were three pointers, and the Blugolds only made five of them to put their three-point field goal percentage at 17.9 percent for the game.

The Wartburg took full advantage of the struggles of Eau Claire by boasting much higher numbers on the offensive side of the ball. The Knights shot 51.1 percent from the field, as well as shooting 27.3 percent from beyond the arc.

Leading the way for Wartburg on offense were starters Katie Sommer, Aryn Jones and Miranda Murphy. Sommer scored 13 points on 3-5 shooting, Jones racked up 13 points on 5-11 shooting and Murphy tallied a team high 14 points on 6-7 shooting in 29 mins. Also contributing to the win for the Knights was reserve player, Adrienne Boettger, who scored nine points in only 15 mins played off of the bench for Wartburg.

Graaskamp said the biggest factor in the Knights victory was the fact that they consistently controlled the paint.

“We were letting their guards drive into the lane on us and then they were able to dump past down to the post and the post had to come help, so I think that was really our biggest downfall in the game,” Graaskamp said.

The Blugolds next opponent will be the UW-Superior Yellowjackets. This is expected to be a close contest, as Superior currently holds a 1-2 record. That may not look like an impressive record, but the Yellowjackets have had their share of close calls so far this season.

In Superior’s first game of the season against Saint Benedict (Minn.) on Nov. 15, the Yellowjackets were bested by only one point, losing 54-53. Their next game against Augsburg college, they were defeated by only two points 86-84. The Blugolds may be facing a close contest coming up.

Eau Claire’s next game will take place on Tuesday against UW-Superior at Mertz Mortorelli Gymnasium in Superior beginning at 7 p.m. A full recap of the game, along with an in depth box score, will be available immediately after the game on blugolds.com.