Senior Kathryn Berger moves in for a layup against Case Western on Jan. 30. Berger scored a game-high 18 points in a loss last Sunday at Rochester and fueled the team to a victory over Emory last Friday with a career-high 32 point, 10 rebound and five steal effort.

The then No. 6 Bears saw their conference-winning streak reach nine games last Friday after a 74-60 victory over Emory University before falling 71-61 at the hands of No. 16 University of Rochester this past Sunday.

With the weekend split, the Bears (18-4, 9-2 UAA) fell to No. 9 in the D3hoops.com Top-25 poll and fell two full games behind No. 8 University of Chicago (19-3, 11-0 UAA) with three games remaining on the conference schedule.

One week after using a strong run to close out the first half and take control of the game against Case Western Reserve University, the Bears surrendered a similar run to Rochester. After a back-and-forth first half that included 13 points from senior co-captain Kathryn Berger found the Bears ahead 23-22 with 3:15 remaining, the Yellowjackets made their move. Rochester ended the half on a 12-2 run to end the half with a 34-25 that would hold for the remainder of the game.

“You can feel [the momentum shifting] because our shots weren’t falling, and theirs were, and they were getting a lot more in than we were,” Berger said.

The Bears put up a fight in the second half and never quite let the game out of hand, as the Rochester lead never reached more than 15 points. The Yellowjackets, however, closed the game with stingy defense and strong second-half shooting (52.4 percent) to seal the win.

Berger led the team with 18 points, and junior Dani Hoover’s added 11in the losing effort. The Bears shot 32.8 percent for the game, their third-lowest percentage of the season, and had a season-worst assist-to-turnover ratio of 10 to 18.

“You’ve got to give credit to Rochester for playing some good defense,” head coach Nancy Fahey said. “I also feel like there’s a difference between unforced turnovers and turnovers you do on your own, and in a big game like that I feel like we had too many situations where they were unforced.”

After Sunday’s loss, the Bears have not won at Rochester since the 2006-2007 season.

On Friday, the Bears relied on the strength of a strong first half and a phenomenal game from Berger to get the win over Emory.

Berger scored 19 of her career-high 32 points in the first half to give Wash. U. a 43-31 lead at the break. Her 1,000th career point as a Bear came with 11:08 remaining in the game on a 3-pointer assisted by Dani Hoover.

“I’m incredibly happy for her. It’s hard to score 1,000 points in this program because we share the ball so much. So it’s really a credit to her and her teammates,” Fahey said. “Emory started the game on fire, and she kept answering.”

Despite allowing Emory to creep back into the game in the second half, coming within a 51-47 margin with 12:33 remaining, Wash. U. used strong second-half efforts from Berger and sophomore Annie Sayers to close out the win. Sayers finished with 12 points while co-captain Alex Hoover, a senior, chipped in eight points and seven assists.

Berger also accounted for 10 rebounds and five steals in her best individual performance as a Wash. U. Bear.

“It means a ton,” Berger said of the achievement. “It means that Coach Fahey’s seen me through quite a bit. To me, it really represents a lot of the hard work that I’ve put in, and obviously, I get to be recognized for that. It’s an accumulation of everything, and it’s really nice.”

The Beats will end the season with three conference home games. Play continues against New York University on Friday and Brandeis University on Sunday. Though the Bears will need at least one loss from Chicago to have a chance at winning the UAA conference title, the team remains unfazed. The Bears host the Maroons to close the season on Feb. 26.

“[The standings are] out of our hands, and we’re responsible for that,” Fahey said. “We’re just going to concentrate on playing well these next three games, and our goal obviously was to win the UAA championship, but there are other goals besides that. We’ve got to take care of business this weekend so other aspirations can be followed up on.”

The game against NYU will begin at 6 p.m. on Friday.