Trying to win on the road is never easy — especially when the opposing team has won 40 straight on its home floor.

Well, make it 41, as the NIU women’s basketball team lost at red-hot Kent State 80-68 on Thursday.

The Huskies (10-13 overall, 6-4 in the Mid-American Conference) held an early lead of 23-9 but went into the half trailing 42-37. The final 10 minutes of the first half saw NIU commit 11 turnovers to be outscored 33-14. Kent State got back into the game by going to a full court press, which frustrated the Huskies.

“We were doing some very nice things early, breaking the press,” NIU coach Carol Hammerle said. “We were up 14 and everything was going our way but then we started to go out of the system. We got careless and made some poor decisions in our passing. Then it snowballed on us.”

The Huskies gave up 80 points, the most coughed up by their defense since Dec. 9 against DePaul. They also allowed Kent State center Julie Studer to score 27 points in only 24 minutes. Joining Studer was guard Carrie Nance, who had 28 points, 7 assists and 5 steals.

For the Huskies, guard Monique Davis scored a season-high 11 points and added 3 steals. Three other Huskies scored in double figures, with Jennifer Youngblood leading the way with 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting, Mickey Johnson adding 11 points and 4 steals, and Kristan Knake scoring 10 points. Freshman guard Stephanie Smith almost reached double digits, adding 9 points on 4-of-6 shooting.

NIU tried to make a second-half comeback, but found itself down by 11 points just 30 seconds into the second half, as KSU began on a 6-0 run. After baskets from Knake and Davis, the Huskies cut the lead back down to 7, but KSU went on another 6-0 run to maintain a big lead.

After shooting 58 percent in the first half, the Huskies went 9-of-25 in the second half. To make things worse, they committed 27 turnovers which led to 31 points for the Golden Flashes.

“We played their game,” Hammerle said. “Their press bothered us. We broke it initially, but then we got careless. They are able to play with a lot more intensity

here.”