The women’s basketball team continued to struggle in conference play this weekend, dropping road games against the University of Chicago in an 81-52 rout and against UAA-leading Washington University by a score 61-47. Emory now sits in seventh out of eight schools in the conference with a 2-7 UAA record, and fell to 9-11 overall.

On Sunday, the Eagles trailed early in St. Louis against the No. 6-ranked Bears and never could recover. Wash. U scored 13 unanswered points to open the game and increased its lead to 20 with more than six minutes still to play in the first half. Emory did not crack double digits on the scoreboard until the closing seconds of the period, and went into the locker room down 36-10.

The Eagles shot a dismal 4-22 from the field, turned the ball over 12 times, and were out-rebounded 24-14 in the opening half.

Disappointed with their first-half performance, the Eagles increased their presence on the defensive boards and improved their shooting percentage to 46.4 in the second half. While the Bears were able to enlarge their lead to 31 points with 12:27 still remaining in the game, Emory clawed back with a 14-3 run over the next six minutes.

A 9-2 Eagles run in the contest’s final 1:40 would cut Wash. U’s final margin of victory to only 14.

“The biggest difference between the first and the second half is that we weren’t hitting anything,” senior forward and co-captain Whitney Martin said. “We didn’t execute very well and didn’t give ourselves opportunities.”

Freshman center Danielle Landry led Emory’s scoring in the game with 11 points along with seven rebounds, followed by Martin with nine points. The Eagles 47-point total tied their lowest offensive performance of the season.

Emory fared no better in their Friday-night game against second-place Chicago, as the Eagles found themselves down 15-3 before even five minutes had passed. By the midway point of the opening half, the Maroons’ lead increased to 23 points and was as high as 31 at one point. After shooting 8-34 from the field and getting out-rebounded 31-16 in the half, Emory trailed 53-23 at the break.

“We came out flat,” Martin said. “We weren’t resilient, we didn’t fight back very well. We didn’t take a lot of high percentage shots.”

Chicago continued to open up the scoring early in the second half, as the Maroons scored 12 unanswered points to increase the lead to a whopping margin of 71-27 at the 13:21 mark.

The 44-point difference was the most out of hand that the contest would get, as the Eagles outscored Chicago 16-4 during the final 10 minutes of the game. Emory’s offensive woes continued in the half, as the team shot 9-32 and finished with a shooting percentage of 25.8 for the game.

One of the few bright spots for Emory was the performance of sophomore guard Melissa Koike, who finished with a team-high and career-high 12 points.

Additionally, Landry nearly earned her first double-double of the season, ending the night with nine points and nine rebounds.

The Eagles continue their conference schedule on the road this weekend, as they travel to Pittsburgh on Friday night to take on Carnegie Mellon University followed by a Sunday contest in Cleveland against Case Western Reserve University.

“We don’t want to see the same outcome,” Martin said of the upcoming games. “It’s embarrassing to lose by the amount that we did to Chicago. We know we can compete with these teams, we know we can beat them. We just need to stay positive.”

The team must win at least one of this weekend’s games to maintain the opportunity to finish at least .500 for the season.

— Contact David Michaels.