Coming into the weekend with a five-game winning streak dating back to Nov. 21, women’s basketball ended up falling short, unable to win either game on their trip to Ottawa.

Queen’s suffered defeats on both nights, losing 44-46 in Friday’s game against the Ottawa Gee Gees and 86-66 the following night to the Carleton Ravens.

As the Gee-Gees are the Gaels rivals, the team was especially frustrated with that loss. The Friday night game had the characteristics of a playoff series – a low-scoring game with tough defence.

The Gaels held the lead for most of the fourth, but hit their final basket at the 4:11 mark. They missed five field goals during the remainder of the contest. The Gee-Gees scored seven points, allowing them to come back from five down and steal the win.

“You should win a game when you only give up 46 points,” head coach Dave Wilson said, adding that he was pleased with his team’s defensive efforts, but dissatisfied with their inability to score.

Saturday night’s game against the Ravens left the Gaels trailing far behind, as each quarter ended with a double-digit gap. The Gaels, who appeared to be out of gas from the previous night, were unable to cut the lead to under 15 in the fourth quarter.

“Our kids are competitive, [and] they certainly want to win from the outset. We had a rough start both games. Carleton made life really difficult because they converted on so many possessions,” Wilson said, adding that the Raven’s shooting percentage was very high for the league.

Carleton shot 47.8 per cent from the field, 48 per cent from the three-point line, and 72.7 per cent from the free-throw line. While the Gaels shot 50 per cent from the three-point line, they took less than half the shots: they shot five for 10 in comparison to the Ravens’ 12 shots made in 25 attempts.

In addition to their strong overall shooting percentage, the Ravens outscored the Gaels 13-4 in second-chance points.

“It’s demoralizing when you’re trying to play defence and you force them, and stop their penetration, and stop their inside move, and force them to kick it out, and, Jesus, it’s going through the hoop again,” Wilson said.

The Gaels still hold a 9-3 record, and are tied for fourth place in the OUA standings. However, for Wilson, there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

“Our individual defence needs a lot of work, and we need to convert. We’ve been getting good looks on offence, but we need to convert those good looks into points.”

The Gaels are taking a few days off to recover. They’ll return to practice on Tuesday to prepare for their home games against the Guelph Gryphons and Lakehead Thunderwolves this weekend.