Northern Kentucky University Women’s Basketball, which was chosen as the preseason favorite in the Great Lakes Valley Conference East, dropped to a record of 1-4 in the conference after losing to Lewis University 75-64, Jan. 6.

This is the fourth straight time NKU lost to a GLVC opponent. This week they have a chance to break that streak against Missouri-Rolla and Missouri-St. Louis. The Norse will have to work hard in order to get its conference record to improve and will have to jump on every opportunity that’s available. The players have learned from the Lewis game and are focusing on the positives and working on the negatives.

“We did some good things in this game, but we just came up a little short at the end,” Head Coach Nancy Winstel said. “We worked very hard at getting the ball inside, but we just didn’t finish. We drew fouls, but we didn’t shoot it from the line particularly well.”

Lewis’s seniors, Darcee Schmidt and Mary Moskal, ran the show to take down NKU. They both combined for 55 points and 16 rebounds. Schmidt finished at 13-of-22 from the field and made a total of 32 points. Moskal, last year’s GLVC Player of the Year, finished with 23 points and eight rebounds.

Lewis (12-2, 5-1 GLVC) shot 55.6 percent from the field in the first half to take a 43-33 lead. The Norse came back out with a short burning fire and pulled within 59-57 with 8:31 remaining in the game, but couldn’t defeat the Flyers.

The Norse had opportunities to tie the game and apply pressure on Lewis, but didn’t take advantage of the situations, such as scoring at crucial times.

NKU’s senior Karyn Creager and junior Angela Healy led the Norse scoring 13 points each and senior Karmen Graham finished with 12 points, two shy of joining the NKU 1,000-point club. Creager ended her record streak of made free throws at 34, and as a team, NKU was 18-for-26 at the line.

The Norse is now 7-5 overall, and will face Missouri-Rolla at 5:30 p.m., Jan. 11 in Regents Hall. Then the Norse will come back out to play Missouri-St. Louis at 1 p.m., Jan. 13 in Regents Hall.