With three victories to open Mid-American Conference play, Ball State University's women's basketball team resembled the league favorite most expected at the beginning of the season.
Saturday, the Cardinals' momentum snapped with a six-point loss at the University of Toledo, which played without its leading scorer and rebounder. Senior captain Julie DeMuth said her team is on a mission Wednesday night when it tips off against Central Michigan University at 7 p.m. in Worthen Arena.
"We're going to come out hard and make a statement," DeMuth said. "We were ranked No. 1 in the MAC at the beginning of the season. We want to come out and put in the minds of everybody that we still deserve to be considered No. 1."
Since its loss to the Rockets, acting head coach Lisa McDonald said Ball State has heightened its focus on the task at hand. Players practiced Monday with fewer outside distractions due to having classes off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
McDonald said her team has had two "great" practices since its first loss of the conference season.
"The Toledo loss definitely left a bad taste in our mouths," McDonald said. "We're hungry to get back out on the court and get after it again. We've had two of our better practices in a while, and we're usually a team that carries our practices over into the game."
Ball State opened the MAC season last year with seven wins, the first five of which came against West Division opponents. Senior forward Lisa Rusche said there's a major difference between opening the first five games against divisional opponents with one loss as opposed to a couple losses.
"I think when you're 4-1, people can look at that one loss as a fluke," Rusche said. "They still know you're a good team because you were nearly perfect in your first five games."
Tonight's game will open Ball State's first home stand of the season in which four of the next five contests will be played in Worthen Arena. A win would also keep the Cardinals in a tie atop the West Division along with Eastern Michigan University and Western Michigan University, two teams Ball State already defeated this year.
While McDonald said it would be preferable to open the home stand with a win, she added that tonight's game will be more important because of the potential postseason ramifications being first in the West Division could bring.
"We're looking at it as a mini-championship," McDonald said. "Divisional rank is huge because of the way seeding works in the MAC Tournament in March. We want to get a bye in the first round. So it's important that we start separating ourselves from others teams in our division."
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