PLATTEVILLE - Playing on the newly honored Bo Ryan Court, the UW-Eau Claire women's basketball team overcame an eight point halftime deficit to defeat UW-Platteville 59-51.

The win brings the Blugolds to 7-4 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) and 13-7 overall. The team is back to second in the WIAC standings. The Blugolds are now 4-7 on the road. Platteville falls to 2-8 in conference play while going 8-11 in all games. Eau Claire owns the all-time record at 42-12 after defeating the Pioneers twice this season.

The game was tight early with Eau Claire's largest lead being a 6-1 score at 16:30. The Pioneers battled back and fought the Blugolds to five ties during the first half. With about four minutes left to play in the first half, Platteville began building a sizable lead for the first time today. It floated between four and seven points until Pioneer Vanessa Nemitz hit a three with three seconds left to make the score 34-26.

The Blugolds shot 36.4% on the half while making 1-of-6 from long range and 9-of-10 from the line. Platteville put up a 43.5% field goal percentage as it made 4-of-8 from behind the arc and 10-of-14 on free throws.

The eight point lead would be Platteville's largest of the day as the Blugolds came out in the second half ready to take home a WIAC victory. A Heidi Arciszewski (So.-Thorp) bucket and free throw at 13:16 brought the Blugolds back on top. The two teams kept exchanging baskets until Heather Witt (So.-Kendall/Royall) nailed a three at 9:59 to bring Eau Claire up by two. It would be the start of a 12-0 run that propelled Eau Claire to victory. The lead grew to 11 at 6:22 with a 55-44 score. The Pioneers got it down to 55-48 at 4:16 but a couple of Michelle Burns (Jr.-Eau Claire/North) free throws and an Ashley Anderson (So.-Oakdale, MN/North St. Paul) jumper brought it to an 11-point lead again at 2:10. The Pioneers could not overcome the large deficit as Eau Claire went on to win 59-51.

Eau Claire shot 40.4% while going 28.6% on threes and 70.8% on free throws. The team also won the rebound battle by a 34-to-28 margin and had 14 second chance points to Platteville's four.

Brittanni Hakanson (So.-Wheeler/Boyceville) led Eau Claire with 11 points. Both Witt and Burns had eight boards.

The Platteville side of the story was quite different, with Liz Tesch scoring 23 points. The next highest was Liz Wisdom's nine. The Pioneers had 13 turnovers to 18 for the Blugolds. As a team Platteville shot 35.3% while going 4-of-18 for 22.2% on threes and 68.8% on free throws. The team usually shoots 34.4% on threes, good for third in the WIAC.

Wednesday the team will come back to Zorn Arena to celebrate Team Night as it faces UW-Stevens Point at 7 p.m..

Eau Claire-Platteville Box Score

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