The Kent State women’s basketball team will face Niagara 2 p.m. Saturday at the Gallagher Center in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

The Purple Eagles earned their first home victory of the season with a 70-59 win over Oakland Sunday. Niagara shot 47.4 percent (14-for-27) from the floor and had 26 points in the paint. The Purple Eagles bench scored 28 points.

Lauren Gatto had the team-high of 17 points. Val McQuade finished with 12 points and a team-high seven rebounds.

“We probably will shift our focus more toward what we need to do to be successful because at the end of the day of our six games quite honestly,” head coach Danielle O’Banion said. “We’ve been the reason why the outcome hasn’t been desired. I think the focus has to shift to what we do and us playing Kent State basketball.”

Kent State fell 81-67 to Saint Francis Wednesday. The Flashes had four players scoring in double digits and continue to improve their game with a 42.6 field goal percentage and the bench scoring 27 points.

Junior Amber Dunlap pointed to the defensive end of the floor as an area that needs improvement.

“Just transition defense,” Dunlap said. “Just holding the hole and being able to close out on our shooters tighter than we are. We mostly run the match ups, which we should not run. We should run to the open people on the ball side and just play defense.”

Dunlap led the Flashes coming off the bench to have a career-high 16 points. Sophomore Jamie Hutcheson was one rebound short of a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds. Senior Tamzin Barroilhet followed with 13 points and senior Diamon Beckford scored 11 points. Beckford also had seven rebounds.

“We’ll get into the film and figure out where we fell short,” O’Banion said. “I think we cut the deficit to three points. We talked a lot about getting back in the situation where we’re even instead of playing from a deficit all the time. So that’s the next step we need to make.”

Contact Erika Brun at [email protected].