Four losses in a row to begin a season has sunk many a team. Teams that start slow have the potential to pick up their play, and the women’s basketball team is doing just that.

In the last week and a half, the Pipers have defeated Crown College (83-55), lost in overtime to a talented Macalester squad (70-71) and beaten St. Catherine (63-57).

“I think our slow start was somewhat to do with adjusting to our new team size,” said sophomore center Alex Peterson. “This team can go wherever we want to take it and I feel we have the talent to win the MIAC.”

A 1-1 record in the MIAC has the women right in the middle of the pack in the race for the playoffs; and with further adjustments to the team’s smaller size this year, the team looks to make some noise.

“Ideally, a healthy team roster is about 15 players and we only have 10 this year,” said senior guard Emily Behrman. “On larger teams it’s easy to split into smaller groups, but this year we all interact with each other and have all built much closer relationships with each other.”

With a 2-5 overall record, a surface glance suggests the team has struggled out of the gate. However, they have taken both Macalester and North Central (MN) to overtime, losing both games by a combined total of seven points.

The team only has four players standing over 5’10″, and have, much like the men’s program, focused on playing an up-tempo style to take advantage of their athleticism.

“We’re trying to utilize our inside game more, because that’s when we get better looks,” said Behrman. “We feed the post on the inside and then look for the shots that come back out to the outside.”

A small team means everyone has to contribute, and the contributions from the juniors and senior on the team have been crucial in the Pipers winning two of three.

“Everyone on our team who is getting minutes is a feature player,” said Peterson. “We have players that get more offense than others, and we have certain players that feature defensively [sic] but that’s the thing about this year. We don’t have a true feature player, everyone is out there working hard and working together.”

During the opening weeks, the focus has been on communication and improving as a team.

“We’re going to have mistakes happen,” said Behrman. “We haven’t been communicating enough on defense so we’re working on and off the floor to improve that. Our loss to Macalester showed how much we’re improving and even with the burn from a close loss, it’s offset by the improvement we’ve shown.”

The MIAC will be a tough go this year, with perennial favorites St. Thomas (7-0, 2-0 MIAC) and St. Mary’s (6-0, 2-0 MIAC) starting strong and St. Olaf (6-1, 2-0 MIAC) looking much improved from last season.

“I’m looking forward to playing Bethel and St. Ben’s,” said Peterson. “Both teams have great centers who I enjoy playing against.”

The takeaway message from the team is that they see a bright future for themselves as soon as this season.

“We just need people to stick it out,” said Peterson. “Things might be a little rough in the first part of the season, but if fans stick it out and believe in us, we feel we’re going to go places.”

The Pipers return to action today, Wed. Dec. 9, at St. Benedict’s at 7:00 p.m., and have their second home game of the year on Sat. Dec. 12 against St. Olaf at 3:00 p.m.