The Oakland University women’s basketball team (8-10) pulled off a small upset over UMKC Monday night, knocking off a team with a better conference record 81-75 at the O’Rena.

Freshman forward Bethany Watterworth turned in a big night, putting up 22 points and seven rebounds for the Grizzlies in a game that was more closely contested than the final score would indicate.

“We just came out aggressive and looked to score,” Watterworth said. “We never backed down as a team, and we never backed down from this game. (UMKC) made a little run, but we stepped it up and finished it off.”

Oakland carried the lead for nearly the entire game, but UMKC made several scoring runs to get back into the game in the second half, cutting OU’s advantage down to a single point with just over two minutes left to play.

“It always happens in basketball: You have a lead and you get in your heels a bit because you are playing not to lose, and it happened in our offense and we weren’t as aggressive,” head coach Beckie Francis said. “But I thought our defense did a great job in those last few possessions.”

Coming off a career-high 18 points in Thursday’s win, sophomore guard Sharise Calhoun followed up with 17 points against the Kangaroos in addition to a team-high eight rebounds.

Seniors Melissa Jeltema and Riikka Terava also scored in double figures, with 15 and 10 points, respectively.

Oakland took a nine-point lead into halftime, and pushed it to 15 points with 15 minutes remaining before UMKC began its rallies. 

The Kangaroos used an 8-0 scoring run to make it 70-69 with four minutes left on the clock, but Oakland never relinquished its lead.

 “That (game) was exhausting,” Francis said. “We are getting better and what I love about this team is that they are competitors and they knew this was going to be a good game tonight. They made a run at us; we kept our composure and we closed it out. Good teams do that and once again, it was our defense.”

Oakland’s defense limited the third leading scorer in the conference this season, UMKC’s Chanzy Morris, to a season-low three points.

Kangaroos coach Candace Whitaker said this was a typical game for her team that tends to run hot and cold.

“It was a hard fought game,” Whitaker said. “Oakland is a good team and this is a tough place to play … We didn’t do a good enough job defensively in the first half and we didn’t make the stops when we needed to.”

With the victory, Oakland improved to 5-2 in Summit League play, and is currently tied with two other schools for third in the conference standings. 

“We don’t really get caught up in the league standings because it’s too early. We don’t worry about it and just take things one game at a time,” Francis said. “We know (UMKC) beat IPFW the night before and we lost to them (in December), so that was a personal signal we could send to ourselves and the league.” 

The Golden Grizzlies will begin a four-game road trip against South Dakota State Saturday, returning to the site of the team’s loss in the conference championship game for the first time.