| BG’s Chrissy Steffen drives to the basket against Kent State. (Photo: Andrew Weber/Sentinel-Tribune) |
From too scared to win, to sustained excellence, that’s the gauntlet of emotions Bowling Green’s women’s
basketball team experienced in a showdown game with Kent State Saturday.
The Falcons out-scored the Golden Flashes by 20 points in the first half and led by as many as 25 in the
second half, before the Golden Flashes rallied as BG went ice-cold from the field.
BG senior Tracy Pontius said after the game, it was during a timeout in the second half that head coach
Curt Miller told his team they were too scared to win.
The Falcons took that message to heart and went on to post an 80-59 victory which earned Bowling Green
its seventh straight Mid-American Conference divisional title and the No. 2 seed for the MAC tournament.
The seven straight divisional titles, plus eight straight seasons of 20 or more wins, are what Miller
calls “sustained excellence.
“What’s really exciting about it, is the sustained excellence, the sustaining of staying at the top of
the East,” Miller continued. “Senior class after senior class, translating that down to the
underclassmen and really understanding the tradition being passed along.”
The first half was one for the highlight tape as BG was 17-of-32 from the field, including 10-of-17 on
3-pointers, 5-of-6 from the free-throw line with 12 assists on only six turnovers. The Falcons were up
49-29 at the break. The 49 points are more than BG scored in the first meeting between the two teams, a
44-43 Kent State victory.
“Our first half was terrific offensively,” Miller said. “We shot the ball well at the (3-point) arc. We
had really good ball movement, extra passes.”
“We really worked on getting catches in the scoring area so we could be productive and have the ability
to score,” Pontius said.
Kent State head coach Bob Lindsay, said his team was not as physical with the Falcons to start the game,
as the Golden Flashes were in the first meeting.
“And they made shots. In the first game they didn’t make shots,” Lindsay added. “I thought in the first
game their shots were contested a lot more than they were today.”
In the second half, BG was up 25 points, 56-31, after a Chrissy Steffen layup with 16:39 left in the
game. The Falcons didn’t make another field goal for 9:46 until Maggie Hennegan hit a foul-line jumper
with 6:53 remaining.
Pontius said the team didn’t feel pressure in the second half, but “we were scared to win at one point
… After that timeout … I think we realized that we had to go for it, that it was all or nothing.
“We just came out aggressive like we were in the first half.”
In that long drought without a field goal, BG did make six free throws and played good enough defense
that Kent State never got closer than 15 points.
“I thought we lost our legs a little bit and therefore we missed some threes we are capable of making,”
Miller said. “We got a little tentative and they reverted back to pushing us out away from the basket
more, similar to what happened to us at Kent.
“Our defense really dug in and helped us through that stretch.
The Falcons then closed things out, posting the 21-point victory.
“I don’t think we were much of an opponent for them today,” Lindsay said. “We were a step slow all the
way through.”
NOTES: BG is now 24-4 overall and 12-3 in the MAC while Kent State is 19-8, 10-5 … Steffen matched her
career-high with 22 points as BG’s starters accounted for 74 of the team’s 80 points … BG’s Jen Uhl
matched her season-high with 12 rebounds … BG was 15-of-16 from the free-throw line … Next is Senior
Night and the final regular-season game in Anderson Arena for the women on Tuesday against Buffalo with
tipoff at 7 p.m.
