The Baker volleyball team’s losing streak increased to five after a loss to Culver-Stockton University, 22-25, 26-24, 25-22, 25-21. This puts the team’s record at 14-14 overall and 4-3 in conference play.

Junior Natalie Minchow said the current record doesn’t reflect the team’s successes.

“Toward the beginning of the season, we were playing a lot of non-conference games and we are in a very competitive conference,” Minchow said. “So we’ve lost only a couple games to non-ranked teams. I think we’ve done really well against the tough competition that we’ve played so far.”

The Wildcats defense was on fire at the net as the team put up 12 blocks against Culver-Stockton. Junior Danielle French led the way with eight of those blocks, bringing her total to 141 blocks this season. French stands at No. 6 in total blocks in the nation.

Offensively against Culver-Stockton, sophomore Hannah Bettge led the team in both assists and kills with 31 and 10, respectively. Baker’s kill percentage bumped up to .203, when during the previous weekend’s tournament the highest team kill percentage was .172. Both Bettge and senior Sara Slater broke into double digit digs with 10 each.

“We competed really well. We fought hard whether we were up or down because we wanted to win,” Minchow said. “That was something we did well, never giving up hope and fighting back. I think something we need to improve on is being able to finish. We will get that together and be able to win. That was the situation. We got ahead and couldn’t finish it out.”

The ‘Cats look to reverse their current losing streak in the last four matches of the regular season. The team will hit the road on Tuesday to take on Avila University in Kansas City, Mo.

“I think we’ve done well so far. We have so much talent and everyone wants to win,” Minchow said. “We are going to really turn it around by the end of the season. We want to peak at the end of the season. I think that we will because we all want to have that HAAC championship ring. From here on out we are only going to go up.”