Dropping three games over winter break to extend their losing streak to eight, the Flashes have come to a crucial point in the season with the Mid-American Conference schedule opening up and 15 games left in the season.

With a 76-57 loss on Jan. 4 to Bowling Green (11-3, 1-0), the Flashes began a tough MAC schedule that will force coach Bob Lindsay to find who on his team wants to win.

“You have to focus on improving every day and every game. You have to be competitive every time you play against one of these teams,” Lindsay said. “There’s no taking nights off, there’s no playing half speed and no executing at half of what you should be doing. If you can play well enough and improve as the season goes on, you’ll give yourself a chance to win.”

With just over 7:30 left in the game, the Flashes were down by only eight points to a very good Falcons team. Making a change in pace, Bowling Green ended on a 19-to-8 run to finish off the Flashes.

But Lindsay continues to have faith in his women as the young team is coming around and correcting many of its problems that plagued the team at the start of the season.

“There were about five non-conference games that we had a chance to win if we had played well enough to win,” Lindsay said. “We were in all of them and the games were fairly close, but there were plays that busted the game against us. Unless you’re able to finish off games and play well enough long enough to get a win, you’re just not going to win games. We don’t have any excuses; that’s just the way it has been.”

Junior Trisha Krewson has been the lone reliable source for the Flashes on the offensive end of the floor with a lot of inconsistency coming from the other three juniors. Freshmen Jamie Hutcheson and Itziar Llobet have been pulling up the slack by averaging 9.9 and 9.1 points per game respectively.

“If we can put together an effort where we have five players on the floor playing hard and executing, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win,” Lindsay said.

With disappointing non-conference losses over the break to Northeastern (2-9) 73-65 and Bethune-Cookman 58-49, the Flashes returned home to the M.A.C. Center Saturday to defeat Ohio University 68-65.

Sidebar:

– Through 11 games, junior Trisha Krewson is the only player averaging double-figure points with 11.8 per game.

– As a team, the Flashes are averaging 54.3 points per game while allowing 69.5 points on average at the halfway point of the season.

– Aside from Krewson, other three juniors Tamzin Barroilhet, Diamon Beckford and Leslie Schaefer are combining for an average of 17.6 points per game while freshmen Itziar Llobet and Jamie Hutcheson are averaging a combined 20 points per game.

– Outscored over the break 207-to-171.