Sometimes the battle is more than only on the court and seeps into the mind after consecutive losses. On Saturday, Central Connecticut’s women basketball team lost their fifth game in a row, but head coach Beryl Piper hopes her Blue Devils can mentally move on and fight for the final playoff spot.

“This is tough. When you’re in the situation where now we just lost five in a row, like emotionally, mentally for them this is not easy to handle for anybody because I mean obviously, it’s way more fun when you’re getting Ws,” Piper said of the team’s spirit going forward. “It is kind of a character check right now.”

The fight story did not end well for the Blue Devils against the Northeast Conference number two seed, Sacred Heart. The Pioneers battled aggressively on defense to go with an offense that was clicking.

SHU’s offense was successful by passing and moving without the ball before taking the open shot. Their offense came out using a faster starting five with their version of a death lineup with four guards and one forward.

“They came out and we came out and we pressured the zone and they just had multiple kids knocking down shots early on, and it just it set the tone for them,” Piper said of the first half play.

SHU defeated CCSU 73-46 and the Blue Devil defense struggled against the very physical brand. The Pioneers attempted one less field goal but made 42.1 percent of their shots, compared to CCSU’s 32 percent.

Pioneer forward Katherine Hines led the team with 24 points and 12 rebounds, notching a double-double.

Blue Devils center Ashley Berube was the key factor in the matchup, earning herself a double-double with 12 points to go with 11 rebounds.

“I think it would have been a really good opportunity for us to get the ball inside for Berube and in transition for her to get the basketball because it’s hard for them to double her in transition,” Piper said. “I don’t think that we executed offense very well. We didn’t move the ball, we were kind of one and done. We weren’t really getting ball reversal.”

In the first half, the Blue Devils failed to defend the three-point line allowing 7-11 Pioneer threes. The defense came back out on the court after halftime holding the Pioneers to only nine points in the third quarter, but the offense struggled to find the bottom of the net, scoring only seven points.

It starts on the defensive end by creating turnovers, getting out in transition to take advantage and get quick points on the board. The Lady Blue Devils had many opportunities to run, but Piper thought they “stopped [their] own break multiple times.”

“Usually you’re going on a run, and we had to get on a run and try to get the game to 10 and we couldn’t hit any shots,” Piper continued. “We couldn’t make any baskets and we were defending pretty well and doing a good job on them defensively.”

In the upcoming matchups Central will have to create space to get the open shots at home against Mount St. Mary, Fairleigh Dickinson and Saint Francis (BKN), and away at LIU Brooklyn.

With four conference games left, CCSU is sitting in a three-way tie for the eighth seed. Currently three games behind Mount and Bryant, who are tied for the sixth seed, Central has the prospect to cut into that deficit when they play Mount on Feb. 25.

Central has the more favorable schedule as they head into the final stretch of the season, with winnable matchups against LIU Brooklyn and FDU, who are also towards the bottom of the standings.

“We gotta move on, we got a game on Monday and we have to be ready to play,” Piper said.