The NIU women’s basketball team fell just short of winning its first two conference games for the first time since 2005.

The Huskies (6-9, 1-1 MAC) fell to the Toledo Rockets (8-7, 2-0) 77-67 Saturday afternoon in Toledo. NIU was trying to win its third straight road contest, after winning at Central Michigan 75-70.

Leading by one at halftime, it was poor shooting in the second half that made the difference for the Huskies, as they shot 44 percent in the first, but shot only 37 percent in the second half. Toledo shot 44 percent overall for the night.

“I think it was just poor execution on our end, on offense,” said NIU head coach Carol Owens. “We were settling for jump shots. We have to understand that we’ve got other options within our offense.”

NIU’s sophomore center Ebony Ellis was the most dominant player on the floor, grabbing 16 boards and scoring 14 in the loss. Ten of her rebounds came on the offensive end.

“I thought Toledo played really well, but our goal is to be competitive in the MAC, and I think we’re fine,” Owens said. “If you don’t shoot well, you’re going to have games like this, but I think our heads are in the right place.”

NIU led by as much as nine in the first half, thanks to nine points from redshirt sophomore Marke Freeman. The Rockets were able to build a run of their own to close the halftime gap to one.

“We got in a little bit of foul trouble that hurt us down the stretch,” Owens said. “[Toledo] made a run and cut it to one at half, and came back out and shot the ball really well.”

The rest of winter break was a mirror image of the Toledo game, as the Huskies were up and down, going 3-4 over the holiday season, highlighted by back-to-back road wins over Southern Illinois and Central Michigan.

With the Toledo loss, NIU falls to 1-1 early on in conference play, and will seek to move above the .500 mark on Wednesday, when the Huskies host Western Michigan at 7 p.m. at the Convocation Center.

“Especially our seniors and juniors, they understand what conference play means,” Owens said. “Every game is important, home or away, and I think they look forward to that. They want it really bad, so they’ll bounce back and get ready for Wednesday.”