Titans, Baerenwald burn Lake Forest

Sophomore Heidi Baerenwald’s three point play with two seconds left in the game proved to be the difference as the Titans women’s basketball team beat Lake Forest College 66-64 in Lake Forest, Ill. Tuesday night.

Making her UW-Oshkosh debut, Baerenwald, who played at Ripon College last season, added some much needed spark to the Titans offense.

Dominating the low post for the majority of the game, Heidi shot 12-17 from the floor and 4-5 from the free throw line en route to 28 points.

Baerenwald also grabbed nine rebounds to help overcome a late charge by the Foresters.

“It is a great help to have Heidi as a low post presence,” said Oshkosh head coach Terri Schumacher. “It is going to cause people a lot of problems, something that we were missing in the inside.”

Junior forward Shelby Churchill said it was obvious that Baerenwald will help fix what the Titans biggest problem was last year.

“Scoring on offense, that’s what we had a real hard time with,” she said. “Just scoring in general. Heidi was a huge post presence.”

Schumacher said she believes that the post presence will open up their outside shooters and allow more shots, but the Titans did not shoot well Tuesday night.

Oshkosh was 3-12 from beyond the three-point arc, so the offensive weight load fell on the Titans post players.

Nonetheless, Schumacher said she believes Oshkosh has the “whole package” for a solid team and they are focusing one game at a time so as to maximize their potential.
  
The Titans led the whole second half except for a push midway through when the Foresters tied the game with 8:21 left, and took the lead with 21 seconds left as Lake Forest's Lina Nassin hit a jumper to give them the edge by one.

“I was pretty confident in the team the whole time,” said Schumacher about her team’s performance. “I was pretty confident that if we kept getting the ball to Heidi that we would pull it out.”

Schumacher drew up a decisive play that allowed junior guard Laura Ebbens to dish the ball to Baerenwald for the winning layup while getting fouled.

Baerenwald made the ensuing free throw, capping the Titans percentage at 68% from the line and putting away their first win.

Oshkosh’s win was the first game after an exhibition game against UW-Madison's women basketball team on Nov. 8.

Schumacher said that the Wisconsin game helped the team improve on taking better care of the ball, being more aggressive on the offensive and defensive side of the ball and fine-tuning “the little things,” which helped them get better for their game against Lake Forest.

Posting one of the youngest rosters in the conference with six freshmen, four sophomores and juniors, and no seniors, Schumacher said that, “We have a great group of kids that have a great basketball mind set.”

The Titans will play their next three games on the road, starting with Carroll University on Thursday.

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