NIU women’s basketball lost its season opener to Iowa 40-63 in the Preseason WNIT Tournament Friday night.

In the beginning of the first half the Huskies came out battling and stayed with the Hawkeyes as the teams were tied 6-6, going into the first timeout with 13:55 left in the game.

Once the teams got back onto the court Iowa started pulling away after some sloppy offensive play from NIU. Iowa’s three-point shooting and points in the paint really fueled its offense as it went 4-5 from behind the arc and scored 16 points in the paint.

The Huskies struggled offensively in the first half only converting on 4-23 field goals and were 0-7 from the three point line, going into halftime down 13-34 to the Hawkeyes.

Sophomore guard Amanda Corral thought NIU could have done a better job moving the ball around.

“I think some shots were good shots,” Corral said. “There were some that were open. I think we could have worked the ball around a little more, got into the post a little more.”

In the second half the Huskies came out and stepped up their game. Things were much more even as in the second half alone it was a close 27-29 point game. But the deficit from the first half was too much to come back from and NIU fell 40-63.

Senior forward/guard Satavia Taylor had a good night picking up her first career double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Taylor thought the second half performance was just about battling on after the poor start.

“I think we just came out and focused on things that we worked on,” Taylor said. “I think it was just about playing on and forgetting about the first half, playing like it was 0-0 on the court. “

Coach Kathi Bennett thought the Huskies did well defensively, but the 22 turnovers really hurt the team.

“We definitely played very good defense and played very hard,” Bennett said. “We just struggled offensively with taking care of the ball and playing with chemistry and playing with each other. To hold Iowa to 63 points and have 22 turnovers is a pretty good indication that we played hard and played good defense but just really struggled shooting the ball.“