By GUY PERRIN
 Staff Writer

The women’s basketball team returned home from a three-game road trip this past weekend to host Simon Fraser University and Western Washington University. The Wolves came away with a split as they defeated Simon Fraser 68-45 on Thursday but fell to Western Washington 81-48 on Saturday.

On Thursday, Feb. 12, the Wolves put together their best shooting performance of the season, shooting nearly 60 percent from the field, including a sizzling 68 percent in the second half to handle Simon Fraser 68-45. Led by forward Dana Goularte’s 15 points, the Wolves (6-15, 3-10 GNAC) were able to take advantage of the absence of Simon Fraser’s second leading scorer, Meg Wilson (13.4 ppg), and dominate down low, outscoring the Clan (12-10, 8-6 GNAC) 38-22 in points in the paint.

“Beating Simon Fraser gave us a confidence boost knowing that we can play with and beat any team in our conference,” said guard Jordan Mottershaw. “Our goals for the last few games are to execute all of the game plans and really focus on controlling everything we can control. If we do that, I know we can get a few more wins.”

Western opened the game with an 11-2 scoring run and never looked back en route to a commanding 33-15 halftime lead. The Wolves were able to add suffocating defense to their hot shooting as they held Simon Fraser to just 27 percent shooting as well as 20 percent from behind the 3-point line, which included a 1-11 performance in the first half.

“We played as a team,” Goularte said. “We offensively shared the ball well and defensively played team defense. We are concentrating on playing to our best ability as a team.”

On Saturday, Feb. 14, Western Oregon was unable to continue their hot shooting against the conference’s third best team, Western Washington, shooting just 39 percent from the field including 28 percent from behind the 3-point line to lose 81-48. The team’s leading scorer, Goularte once again led the team with 12 points and seven rebounds, but it wasn’t enough as Western Washington (17-7, 11-4 GNAC) shot nearly 50 percent from the field and went a perfect 10-10 at the free-throw line.

The Wolves (6-16, 3-11 GNAC) wore pink jerseys to support the Play4Kay breast cancer research foundation in honor of Kay Yow, the women’s basketball coach at NC State who died in 2009.

Western faces a daunting road trip next week as they travel to Billings, Mont. on Thursday, Feb. 19 to play Montana State-Billings before traveling to Seattle to play Seattle Pacific University on Saturday, Feb. 21.