Titans Sweep Season Series With Pioneers
Leah Porath led all players with 20 points and grabbed a team-leading six rebounds to propel the UW-Oshkosh women's basketball team to a 59-47 win at UW-Platteville on Wednesday (Feb. 2).
UW-Oshkosh trailed for just 87 seconds the entire night on the way to sweeping the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular season series versus UW-Platteville and earning its 18th win in the past 20 meetings with the Pioneers.
The Titans jumped out to a 9-2 advantage during the opening three minutes and reclaimed the lead for good at 26-24 following a Porath jumper with 2:58 left in the second quarter. UW-Oshkosh, which held a 31-26 lead at halftime, put the game away with 13 unanswered points starting at the 4:39 mark of the third quarter until building a 48-34 advantage with 8:20 left in the contest.
UW-Oshkosh (15-4, 4-3 WIAC), which held its 12th opponent under 50 points this season, also defeated the Pioneers (9-11, 2-8) by a 66-56 score Jan. 19 in Platteville.
Porath shot 9-for-16 from the floor en route to moving up two more spots and into fifth on UW-Oshkosh's all-time scoring list with 1,284 career points, passing Kristin Steckmesser (1,274 points) and Taylor Schmidt (1,281). Porath, a 2021 D3hoops.com First Team All-American and two-time reigning WIAC Player of the Year, has now scored at least eight points in 65 consecutive games that have included 59 double-figure scoring performances.
Nikki Arneson added 11 points for the Titans, who also received nine points and four steals from Abby Kaiser, eight points and five rebounds from Jenna Jorgensen, six points from Ava Douglas and five boards from Kennedy Osterman.
Kaiser shot 4-for-5 from the field while Arneson went 1-for-3 from 3-point range after heading into the night ranked eighth in the country with a .444 3-point percentage.
UW-Oshkosh was 22 of 49 (.449) from the floor, 3-for-15 (.200) from beyond the 3-point arc and 12 of 23 (.522) at the free throw line. The Titans owned advantages of 7-15 in turnovers and 9-1 in steals. UW-Oshkosh, which had committed 10 or fewer turnovers on nine occasions this season, went into Wednesday leading the country at 10.9 turnovers per game and ninth nationally by holding opponents to 48.2 points per contest.
UW-Platteville shot 39.1% (18-46) from the field, 23.1% (3-13) from 3-point range and 53.3% (8-15) at the foul line. The Pioneers held advantages of 34-28 in rebounds, 9-4 in assists and 3-2 in blocks.
Maiah Domask paced the Pioneers with 16 points and a game-high 14 rebounds for her WIAC-leading 11th double-double this season.
Sarah Mueller contributed 10 points in a reserve role for UW-Platteville while Allison Heckert chipped in seven points and 10 rebounds.
Arneson and Porath combined to score each of the Titans' first nine points as they jumped out to their 9-2 lead less than three minutes into the game. A Kaiser layup extended the UW-Oshkosh advantage to 16-8, but UW-Platteville responded with 10 straight points to claim its first and only lead of the night at 18-16 on an Aspyn Stewart jumper at the first-quarter buzzer.
Another Kaiser layup knotted the score at 18 with 8:34 remaining during the second period, and UW-Oshkosh reclaimed the lead for good 44 seconds later on an Arneson basket in the paint.
The Titans' decisive string of 13 unanswered points spanning the final two quarters began with a Porath layup for a 37-34 advantage with 2:31 to go in the third period. The run continued with a Porath 3-pointer, and a layup and a pair of free throws by Douglas before Jorgensen capped the 13-point blitz with a layup and two free throws of her own for a 48-34 advantage – UW-Oshkosh's largest lead of the night – at the 8:37 mark of the fourth quarter.
UW-Platteville went 0-for-9 from the floor during the six minutes that followed Domask's layup that trimmed the Pioneer deficit to 35-34.
UW-Oshkosh travels to UW-Stout on Saturday (Feb. 5).