If someone told women’s basketball head coach Carol Owens her team was going to score 86 points in Sunday’s home game, she would have said her team would win.

That wasn’t the case, though, as NIU (11-15 overall, 7-8 MAC) was defeated by Western Michigan (13-13 overall, 10-5 MAC) 89-86 on NIU’s Senior Day. The game was the last regular season game for seniors Jennifer Uptmor, Jamie Wilson and Keishonda Williamson.

“We were into the game throughout,” Owens said. “We had opportunities to win it.”

The Huskies were not able to stop the second-ranked scoring offense in the MAC with their defense. So they tried to keep up offensively, scoring a season high.

With under three minutes left in the game, NIU found itself down by 11 points. A three-pointer by junior guard Stephanie Raymond started a run that would see the Huskies come to within four points.

But in the final 45 seconds of the game, Raymond was put on the free-throw line and made one out of four attempts. As a team, NIU shot 7-16 free throws in the second half.

“If we hit five more free-throws out of 31, we would’ve been in good shape,” Owens said.

Raymond scored eight of her game-leading 28 points in the final 45 seconds, in addition to seven assists and nine rebounds that led the game.

“I was just trying to make something happen,” Raymond said.

NIU had one last chance to tie the game. Uptmor was on the free-throw line but missed both. She was able to grab her own rebound but turned the ball over to WMU when she tried to pass the ball to a teammate.

“Right when I grabbed the rebound, I knew I had to kick it out for a three,” Uptmor said. “I tried to get it over an opponent’s head. It didn’t work out.”

After trailing 38-33 in the first half, the Huskies relied heavily on the three-point shot, going 10-18 from beyond the arch. NIU made a season high 15 threes and tied a season high with 29 attempts.

Despite it being Senior Day, Uptmor wasn’t ready to look back on her four seasons, instead looking forward into the MAC tournament.

“I’ve never been to Cleveland,” Uptmor said. “Right now isn’t the time to reflect.”