Titans Never Trail In Win Over Green Knights

Emma Melotik and Madeline Staples led 12 Titan scorers with 12 points apiece as the nationally ranked UW-Oshkosh women's basketball team never trailed on the way to defeating St. Norbert College, 79-49, on Wednesday (Nov. 29) in De Pere.

UW-Oshkosh (6-0), ranked fifth in the NCAA Division III by D3hoops.com, owned a double-digit lead for the final 27:55 of the contest en route to its largest margin over victory over the Green Knights since a 74-44 win on Nov. 29, 1995.

The Titans built leads of 20-13 after one quarter, 39-21 at intermission and 56-36 entering the final period.

Melotik shot 4-for-6 from 3-point range while Staples, who paced the team with six rebounds, finished two points shy of her career high by connecting on 5 of 6 shots from the field. The Titans have now featured seven different leading scorers in their six games this season.

Chloe Pustina added 10 points for the Titans, who also received eight points from Isabella Samuels and six each from Eliza Campbell, Leah Porath, Karsyn Rueth and Melanie Schneider. Porath tied for the team lead with five assists.

UW-Oshkosh's Olivia Campbell contributed five rebounds and a team-leading five assists and two steals.

UW-Oshkosh, which tied its season high with 10 3-pointers, concluded the contest with advantages in field goal percentage (.453 to .333), rebounds (39-29), assists (22-5) and turnovers (17-9).

The Titans went into the 34th meeting between the teams leading the country with 7.2 turnovers per game and a +2.61 assist-to-turnover ratio. UW-Oshkosh also ranked second nationally in scoring margin (+41.6), fourth in field goal percentage (.503), fifth in scoring defense (42.4), seventh in scoring offense (84.0) and eighth in rebounding margin (+16.2).

St. Norbert College entered the game ranked eighth in the country by limiting opponents to 18 percent shooting from 3-point range, but six Titans connected on long-range jumpers as UW-Oshkosh finished the game 10-for-26 (38.5 percent) from beyond the 3-point arc.

UW-Oshkosh improved its record to 21-13 against St. Norbert College, including a 54-32 victory last season in Oshkosh. The Titans and Green Knights were meeting for the 17th time in the past 18 years.

The Titans took the lead for good at 5-2 on a 3-pointer from Pustina with 7:36 to play in the first quarter. Pustina added another long-range jumper as UW-Oshkosh scored eight straight points for a 10-2 advantage with six minutes left in the opening period.

A layup by Schneider capped an 8-0 scoring run that increased the Titan lead to 18-5 before a 3-pointer from Melotik extended the lead to 28-16 at the 7:55 mark of the second quarter.

Leading 32-21 with 4:31 left in the second period, UW-Oshkosh scored 17 unanswered points for a 49-21 advantage with 6:27 remaining in the third quarter. Melotik and Samuels both scored six points during the Titans' 17-point surge.

St. Norbert College (2-3) missed four free throws and 10 field goals while committing four turnovers during UW-Oshkosh decisive 17-0 scoring run that spanned more than eight minutes until the Green Knights' Sarah Wiseman drove for a layup to cut their deficit to 49-23 at the 6:08 mark of the third period.

UW-Oshkosh held its largest lead of 31 points at 79-48 on a layup by Taylor Dagon with 83 seconds to play.

The Green Knights' Wiseman and Sarah Neumann led all players with 14 points apiece.

Neumann collected a game-high seven rebounds while Wiseman had two blocks and two steals.

UW-Oshkosh travels to Hancock, Mich., to play Finlandia University on Saturday (Dec. 2).

Photo courtesy of Jim Campbell