As the women’s basketball team heads into the post season, their focus is very clear: take it one game at a time.

This past season marked the sixth time in 11 years that the women have won the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title. They also spent the majority of the season ranked in the top 15 and passed the 20-win mark for the ninth time in 11 years with a record of 23-2.

As the team heads into their post season, it’s clear that they’re focus is on winning the next game. Brian Niemuth, head women’s basketball coach, stressed the importance of staying focused on the next game.

“Right now you just win the next game,” Niemuth said. “If you look past that you’re in big trouble.”

Senior guard Carlie Beals agreed with Niemuth, saying that it is important to stay focused on one game at a time because there will not be another chance.

“We’ll be focused on taking it one game at a time and playing our hardest because there are no second chances in the post season,” Beals said. “Post season is very competitive and the team that shows up is the team that’s going to win.”

Senior forward Katelyn Whiton said the team still needs to try and improve on the little things so they can be at their best in the post season.

“Every day we need to go out and still try and become better, fix little problems and make sure that we’re having fun,” Whiton said. “The post season is what we work the year for, so we need to make sure we are playing our hardest and our best.”

The team’s depth will likely play a factor in their post season success. Beals added that the number of quality players on the team has been a key component to the team’s achievements thus far.

“Coach Niemuth’s philosophy is to play your hardest when you’re in the game because he rotates people in short shifts so we always have fresh legs on the court,” Beals said. “We are very fortunate to have such a deep team and it really has been important to our success this year.”

Niemuth says one of the things that sets this year’s team apart from past teams is their consistency.

“The thing that sets this team apart is that we’ve been pretty consistent beating our opponents this year,” Niemuth said. “Other years we would get knocked off by somebody that maybe we shouldn’t have.”

Along with their depth, the team also has a number of positive things going for them, one of them being their unselfishness. Senior center Ashley Katch said the team is very supportive of each other, and takes pleasure when another teammate performs well.

“We don’t have anybody that’s selfish on the team,” Katch said. “We all get really excited for each other when we do something good.”