Falcon women hold off Akron, 90-72 for 1-13-11

Bowling Green’s defensive effort, or lack thereof, was enough to make Curt Miller take off his black suit
coat in frustration during the final minute of the first half Wednesday night against Akron in Anderson
Arena.
The coat remained off in the second half, but made an appearance in the post-game press conference. PHOTO GALLERY
The coat was back on because Bowling Green had enough offense to hold off Akron, 90-72, as the two teams
combined to shot over 50 percent from the field, with each making 10 3-pointers.
During the game, BG’s Lauren Prochaska became the second Falcon and 10th player in Mid-American
Conference history to reach 2,000 career points. She finished with a game-high 28 points. (see related
story).
“We needed to play very good offensively to win this game because we couldn’t get a stop to save our
lives tonight,” Prochaska said. “They set good screens and made the right passes. When someone got hot
on the team, they went back to them and ran consecutive plays for the person who got hot. That person
changed throughout the game, so they were able to mix it up as to who got the ball.
“We had to make shots in order to win. So we were lucky our offense came through for us.”
Despite the 90-point outburst and a 30-of-51 (58.8 percent) shooting effort from the field, senior
point-guard Tracy Pontius felt the Falcons could have done even better.
“Personally I don’t think we played very well offensively,” said Pontius, who made five straight 3-points
at one point during the game and finished with 15 points. “We didn’t execute very well tonight … They
knew what we were trying to do. Every game, night in and night out is going to be like that so we have
to execute better.”
From Miller’s perspective, the Falcons needed every point they could get.
“It may be the hardest fought 18-point victory in my career,” Miller said. “They did a real nice job of
executing against our defense. We really had to have a good night at the offensive end to come away with
tonight’s victory.”
The game was close for the first 15 minutes until a 3-pointer from Prochaska pushed BG’s lead into double
digits for the first time with 5:18 to play in the first half. The Falcons would lead by 12, 47-35 at
the break.
Akron stayed competitive and got within six points three times early in the second half, the final time
on a Taylor Ruper jumper with 15:09 left.
Then Pontius hit a three, Maggie Hennegan scored two of her 10 points and Prochaska hit a three and BG
was up by double digits for the next four minutes.

Ruper, who scored all 15 of her points in the second half, nailed a three to cut BG’s lead to nine,
72-63, with 8:14 left.
BG’s Chrissy Steffen answered with a 3-pointer and Chelsea Albert added a traditional three-point play
off an offensive rebound and BG’s lead would remain in double figures the rest of the way.
After Akron’s Natasha Williams’ three cut BG’s lead to 81-71 with 3:35 left, the Falcons closed out the
game on a 9-1 run
“You take something away and they counter. And they read what you take away and so something else opens
up,” Miller said about Akron’s offense. “They are a difficult matchup because essentially they have five
kids on the floor who can score.
“It’s not something we weren’t doing, I thought it was more them playing at a tempo, playing with
confidence to execute what they were trying to accomplish.”
Miller did get so exasperated with BG’s defense, he took off his suit coat late in the first half when
the team did not follow the adjustment made by the coaches to stop Akron freshman Carly Young.
“I don’t take off my coat very much,” Miller said.
“I didn’t actually see it, but I heard about it at halftime. I’m not really sure, but he was a little bit
upset,” Prochaska said.
NOTES: The Falcons are now 15-1 overall and 3-0 in the MAC, having won 15 straight … Akron is now 8-7
overall and 1-2 in the MAC … Each team had four players score in double figures … The 17 points
scored by Steffen were a career-high … BG plays at Kent State (13-3, 3-0) Saturday with tipoff at 2
p.m.