The Belles hope to turn the tide and claim victory against MIAA foe Trine Tuesday after a week-long losing streak.

Saint Mary’s (3-11) has lost five straight matches with its last win Sept. 18 at the Manchester Invitational tournament, and recently suffered a 3-0 loss to Alma on Friday and a 3-1 loss to Adrian on Saturday.

The Thunder (6-11) have extra motivation to come out victorious as they lost their last conference match to Adrian on Sept. 21. Nevertheless, Belles coach Toni Kuschel remains focused on what her squad needs to do to win.

“We are focused on what we need to do as a team on our side of the net to be successful,” Kuschel said.

Kuschel said she hopes for her team to play a well-rounded match, especially on defense and serving, two areas in which the Belles have fallen short often this season. Saint Mary’s had a critical seven service errors and five blocking errors in their loss to Adrian and three to Alma’s zero in Friday night’s loss. The Belles were also outmatched in the service ace category by both opponents this weekend.

“We will need to serve tough so they will have a harder time running a fast offense. We will also need to be successful putting runs together on defense,” Kuschel said. “We have struggled with that the last three matches.”

The Belles will also strive to edge Trine on Wednesday in the non-statistical and more intangible aspects of the match.

“We need to find our offensive rhythm and we need to start to make more good decisions with the ball,” Kuschel said. “We know that we did not communicate well this past week and we know that we did not play to our full potential. If we find our focus and have fun playing together there is no doubt that the rest of our season can be a successful one.”

Saint Mary’s will travel to Angola, Ind., to take on Trine tonight at 7 p.m.