Bowling Green Falcons guard Lexi Fleming (25), center, who is out for the season with a knee injury, talks to her teammates during a timeout during the third quarter of a game on Wednesday at the Stroh Center. Bowling Green defeated Akron 70-59. (Scott W. Grau|Sentinel-Tribune)
Erika Porter displayed deadly accuracy from the field, and Keiryn McGuff and her Bowling Green State University women’s basketball teammates played lock-down defense against the University of Akron on Wednesday.
Porter and McGuff’s effort helped lead the Falcons to a 70-59 Falcon win in Mid-American Conference action in front of 2,035 at the Stroh Center.
Porter went 10-of-11 from the field en route to a game-high 24 points for the Falcons (10-5, 4-1 MAC). Amy Velasco and Morgan Sharps joined Porter in double figures with 16 and 14 points, respectively.
McGuff, making the first start of her young career, led the way defensively, as BGSU held Reagan Bass below her scoring and rebounding averages. Bass entered the game averaging 19.6 points and 11.6 rebounds per game for the Zips (6-9, 1-4 MAC), but had 12 points and eight boards on Wednesday.
Paige Kohler had nine points for the Falcons, while McGuff had four points and six rebounds to tie Porter for the team lead in the latter category.
BGSU trailed for nearly all of the first half, but after the game was tied at the intermission, the Falcons outscored the Zips by a 24-16 count in the third quarter. Porter had 12 points in the third period alone, including the free throws that gave the home team the lead for good with just over six minutes left in the quarter.
Wednesday’s game was a ‘Black Out’ at the Stroh Center, with fans encouraged to wear black and T-shirts handed out to BGSU students upon entry into the arena. The ‘Black Out’ promotion took on an entirely new meaning when, with 57.6 seconds left in the first half, the lights went out – literally – at the Stroh.
The game was halted for approximately 20 minutes before the lights came back up, and the contest was able to continue.
The Zips were 5-for-7 from three-point range in the opening quarter, before going just 4-for-16 over the final 30 minutes.
Akron shot 35.9% from the floor in the contest. The Zips were 9-of-23 from long distance over the 40 minutes, with BG going 4-for-19 from the arc. BGSU allowed the Zips to score just four points in the second quarter.
For the game, BGSU shot 42.9 percent from the field. The Falcons went 10-for-14 (71.4%) from the floor in the third quarter.
The Falcons made 18 free throws in the win, while UA hit just four. BGSU had a 40-38 rebounding advantage, with a total of eight players grabbing at least three boards apiece.
McGuff and Porter each had six rebounds to tie for team honors. In addition to her 14 points, Sharps had four boards, six assists (with no turnovers) and two steals. Velasco had five rebounds, four assists, a steal and two blocks in the win.
The Zips led for the bulk of the first half on Wednesday night. Akron took a quick 5-0 lead before Morgan Sharps got the Falcons on the scoreboard with a three-pointer just over a minute into the game. But, Zakia Rasheed’s second triple of the contest gave UA an 8-3 advantage.
Akron’s leading scorer and rebounder, Reagan Bass, encountered some early foul trouble, as she was whistled for two fouls within the game’s first 2:45. Following Keiryn McGuff’s layup, however, Alexus Mobley knocked down a long-distance try to give the Zips an 11-5 lead.
Paige Kohler scored on the break, and Amy Velasco’s triple cut the BG deficit to 13-10. And, that lead was trimmed to one after an Erika Porter layup. But, Morgan Haney answered with a long-range make, and after Velasco countered with a layup, back-to-back buckets by Kaia Wood gave the Zips a 20-14 lead. Lanae Riley’s trey in the final minute put the visitors up by seven before a Velasco hoop cut the Zips’ lead to 23-18 after 10 minutes.
Both Velasco and Haney had seven points and two assists in the first period.
Neither team scored in the second stanza until a Bass bucket nearly two minutes in, and the Falcons would not get on the scoreboard until just 6:35 remained in the quarter, on a pair of Porter free throws. Those charity tosses, however, would begin an 8-0 run for the Falcons.
McGuff got to the line and sank a pair, and Sharps found Porter for a layup. Porter then scored inside once again, giving BG a 26-25 lead. UA answered with a bucket before a Velasco free throw tied the score.
The score remained 27-27 when the game was halted for over 20 minutes due to the lights going out. When play resumed, Velasco took a charge – the second-straight possession that UA was called for an offensive foul – to keep the contest tied going into the halftime break.
Sharps took a Velasco handoff and knocked down a triple just eight seconds into the second half, but a Bass bucket was followed by a Haney three-pointer that gave Akron a 32-30 lead. That would be UA’s last lead of the evening.
Kohler lobbed the ball in to Porter for a hesitation layup, and after Riley answered with a layup, Porter converted a putback, then made a pair of free throws for a 36-34 BG lead. Sharps canned a pull-up jumper, and Sophie Dziekan grabbed a teammate’s missed shot and put it back up and in. BGSU led, 40-34, and the Zips used a timeout midway through the period.
Bass scored four-straight points before Sharps found Porter for another layup. Woods went coast to coast for a layup, but Porter scored inside before Velasco knocked down a jumper.
A three-pointer by Alexis Stewart cut BGSU’s six-point lead in half, but yet another Porter layup made it a 48-43 game. Then, Velasco’s and-one layup produced the fourth foul on Bass in the final minute of the quarter. Velasco’s free throw gave BGSU a 51-43 lead after 30 minutes.
Porter was a perfect 5-for-5 from the floor in the third period, scoring 12 points in the quarter.
Neither team scored for over three and a half minutes to begin the final quarter, before Haney made a layup for the visitors. Taya Ellis grabbed an offensive rebound, was fouled and hit a free throw nearly midway through the quarter for BGSU’s first point of the stanza.
Out of the media timeout, a Woods jumper cut BG’s lead to 52-47, but McGuff found Velasco for a triple, and Porter converted another shot in the paint. When Sharps drained a pull-up jumper, BGSU had a 59-47 lead, the Falcons’ largest advantage of the night.
The Zips immediately responded, as Riley hit a pair of three-point tries within a span of roughly 30 seconds. After a BGSU turnover and a Bass layup, the Falcons’ lead had shrunk to four points with just over two minutes left. But, BG used nearly all of the shot clock on the ensuing possession, and Kohler’s bad-angle shot found nothing but net with 1:41 to go.
Bass made a pair of free throws with 35.5 seconds remaining, but Sharps was fouled and hit two shots before Akron threw the ball away. Beginning with those Sharps shots, the Falcons went 9-for-10 from the line over the final 35-plus seconds.
Kohler went 5-for-6 from the stripe down the stretch, and Sharps was a perfect 4-for-4 during that time. Akron’s only answer was a Woods layup with six seconds to go.
BGSU hits the road for the next two games, beginning with Saturday afternoon’s (Jan. 20) meeting with Miami at Millett Hall. The Falcons and RedHawks meet in a 1 p.m. start.
Then, the Falcons will head to Buffalo for an 11 a.m. game next Wednesday (Jan. 24), before returning home to face Kent State three days later (Jan. 27). The KSU game is set for a 4 p.m. tip, on Alumnae Day at the Stroh Center.
