By Justin Maskulinski For The Miami Student

Miami University’s women’s basketball team (11-6, 3-1 Mid-American Conference (MAC)) continued to improve its MAC record with a 70-48 win over Eastern Michigan University (3-14, 1-3 MAC) Sunday.

The RedHawks entered their game hoping to lower the amount of turnovers they commit. The ’Hawks had 20 turnovers against Ohio University Thursday and 18 against the Eagles. The ’Hawks numerous injuries are contributing to the turnovers.

“We haven’t had everyone at practice; you’re going to have turnovers.” Fantanarosa said.

Miami had to play the majority of the first half without their top rebounder, senior center Kirsten Olowinski, because of two early fouls but junior forward Erica Almady stepped in and led the team with 12 rebounds.

“[Almady] will do the things that don’t show up on the stat sheet,” senior Courtney Osborn said.

Eastern Michigan senior center India Hairston kept the Eagles close with eight first half points and five rebounds. She finished with 11 points and seven rebounds.

“Eastern [Michigan] doesn’t go away,” Almady said. “They’re really aggressive.”

Osborn and junior guard Hannah Robertson helped the ’Hawks pull ahead with two three pointers each in the first half. Osborn finished with 18 points and Robertson finished with 13. Fantanarosa said that Osborn and Robertson had great games.

Olowinski finished one rebound short of her 37th career double-double, which would have increased the school record that she broke in the win over Ohio.

The ’Hawks led the Eagles 33-29 at the end of the first half and the second half was dominated by the ’Hawks, as the Red and White went on a 28-8 run to begin the second half.

Fantanarosa credited the RedHawks bench for the domination.

“We pushed the tempo,” Fantanarosa said. “Our depth can be a factor to pull away from teams.”

The RedHawks held the Eagles to 19 points in the second half, nine of which came in the last three minutes of the game when the ’Hawks had already pulled away.

“We just shut them down and did a great job in transition,” Osborn said.

The ’Hawks are aware of the tough test that lies ahead of them.

The RedHawks will travel to Bowling Green State University (12-6, 3-1 MAC) for a matchup against the Falcons.

“Bowling Green will be our toughest road game this year,” Fantanarosa said.

The ’Hawks will fight for MAC East Division supremacy at 7 p.m. in the new Stroh Center and Sunday’s performance has Fantanarosa hopeful.

“We’re just scratching the surface of how good we can be,” Fantanarosa said.

Fundageek.com typically attract investors or donors who believe in the research cause of the student seeking funds, Platt said.

Last year Harris posted her research expedition, an opportunity to collect field data on the Sunda clouded leopard in Borneo, on Fundageek.com. She said she would call her fundraising campaign a success.

“I didn’t reach my very tentative and ambitious goal of $4,200 but I still ended up raising I think $1,800 [through Fundageek] and a whole bunch of stuff on the side,” Harris said.

Harris did travel to Borneo to conduct field research at the Danau Girang Field Centre for two months, from June 3 to July 28, 2012. She graduated in December 2012 and is now permanently stationed in Borneo.

When she did research during the summer, she helped set up a grid of motion and heat sensing cameras that captured the wildlife in the area and gave the researchers at the field center an idea of the biodiversity, Harris said. Her project identified individual clouded leopards.

“So far we’ve identified at least nine,” Harris said.

Harris said little to nothing is known about the clouded leopard and the kind of research she conducted had not been done before in Borneo. She said the mystery of this research field appealed to her.

Harris said her summer research project led to her current position in the Kinabatangan Carnivore Program, where she will be tracking and collaring clouded leopards. In October, she will start her Ph.D. program monitoring seven different species of civets, small weasel-like carnivore..

Harris said field conservation biodiversity has been her passion since she was little.

“Summer was kind of the springboard to everything I’ve wanted my whole life,” Harris said.

Professor of Zoology Chris Myer helped Harris get involved with Project Dragonfly, the large education project created by Miami faculty and students that hosts the Earth Expeditions course in Borneo. He said Harris’s research will contribute to a multi-dimensional understanding of Southeast Asian ecosystems and conservation systems.

“One of the issues of wildlife in Southeast Asia is destruction of habitat for palm oil plantations,” Myers said. “[There is] an urgent need to understand how these populations are responding to the conversion of incredibly diverse rainforest systems to plantations. [This will allow scientists to] better understand how changes in the ecosystem are impacting biodiversity.”

Harris isn’t the only student pursuing her passions. Platt said that because of crowd-funding, students are more empowered than ever before to design creative projects and do research.

“If you want to do a creative project or fund your research…you don’t need your professors to mediate that for you anymore,” Platt said. “If you want to do something, you can do it.”

schedules with our practice times,” Fantanarosa said. “We have players who come late and leave early from practice because we know how important it is to be in the classroom.”

Beneath the plethora of resources available to the student athletes, their hard work is what really makes them successful, according to Bennett.