By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

The Bowling Green State University women’s basketball team got a near school-record performance from Erika Porter, but it wasn’t enough in a 70-55 loss to Buffalo inside the Stroh Center Wednesday night.

“Defensively, I thought I thought we were pretty good the in the first half holding a team like that, with a dynamic scorer like Watson, to 29 points … but we let it get away a little bit in the fourth,” BGSU coach Fred Chmiel said.

“(It was) a very uncharacteristic offensive game as of late for us. They did a pretty good job of controlling the dribble drive, but we missed a ton of shots that we normally make.”

Porter finished 10-of-10 from the field for a game-high 22 points along with 13 rebounds and a pair of assists. Seven of those buckets came in the second half, including five in the third quarter, as the fourth-year post player finished just one make shy of matching the program record for most makes without a miss.

The big problem for the Falcons was with the rest of the offense, which struggled to get clean looks and shot just 12-of-47, or 25.5 percent, from the field outside of Porter. In fact, they were 0-for-10 as a team in the third quarter not including Porter’s 5-for-5 performance.

“Our shots didn’t fall, but I just think as a team we should have adjusted better earlier in the game,” Porter said. “That’s all it was.”

Buffalo’s Chellia Watson, who scored 36 against BGSU a month ago and entered Wednesday’s game ranked seventh in the nation in scoring at 23.2 per contest, was held in check for essentially three quarters.

The 5-8 guard buried a straightaway triple on her team’s opening possession but missed her next 12 shots before making a driving, left-side layup with just over 30 seconds left in the third quarter. She then exploded for 14 points in the fourth quarter to finish with a team-best 20 points.

Amy Velasco, the MAC’s reigning player of the week who was coming off a career-best 32-point performance against Northern Illinois, finished 2-of-14 from the field, including just one triple on six attempts. Fellow sharpshooter, Morgan Sharps, went 6-of-19 overall, including 3-of-12 from long distance. Sharps is now four triples shy of tying Chrissy Steffen (2009-13) for sixth on the program’s all-time career list, while Velasco is 33 points short of 1,000 in her career.

“We had a lot of out of rhythm shots and kind of second-guessed ourselves on some offensive attempts, and we didn’t get the ball inside early,” Chmiel said. “We just have to do better offensively. We have to shoot the ball better. You’re not going to win too many games in the MAC with 55 points.”

One of the reasons BGSU couldn’t find a rhythm, at least early on, was due to an inability to maintain possession. The Falcons had four turnovers through the first five minutes of the game, which led to a 10-5 Buffalo lead. Ultimately, they finished the quarter with seven and at one point had more turnovers (6) than points (5), but Buffalo only scored two points off those errors, and Porter’s left-side layup just before the buzzer had the home team within six.

Four more turnovers preceded the second quarter media break as BGSU trailed 21-13, but things started to improve from there as BGSU committed zero turnovers the rest of the half and just three over the final two and a half quarters.

The Falcons (14-12, 8-7) started to crawl back, scoring seven of the next nine points with a chance to tie the game on a straightaway 3-pointer from Velasco with just over three minutes left, but it rattled out. The two teams then combined to shoot 7-of-10 for 19 points over the final four and a half minutes as Buffalo ultimately took a 29-24 lead into the break.

“Anytime we shoot seven of 25 from the three-point line, we’re going to struggle to score points,” Chmiel said. “And the 11 turnovers in the first half, I thought we could have built a lead if we would have just got shot opportunities. That might have helped us out, and it may have been a different game.”

Buffalo took its first double-digit lead just over a minute into the third quarter, but Porter rattled off six straight points over the next four minutes as BGSU trimmed the margin to as few as four late in the quarter before Watson’s late layup made it 42-34.

Watson followed with a 3-pointer from the left wing early in the fourth for a 13-point lead. Although BGSU responded with five straight, the visitors pushed the lead back to 12 a short time later and as many as 18 before finishing 8-of-13 in the quarter with 28 points.

“It compounds, and you let them kind of rule the roost there for three quarters, and then that separation hits with 28 points in the fourth quarter, and we don’t answer the bell, or we answer a little bit too late,” Chmiel said.

One of the highlights of the game was Kyla Smith, who joined the Falcons as a walk-on from the club team earlier this month, as she buried a 3-pointer from the left corner for BGSU’s final points. It was her first collegiate basket.

“I’m very proud of her,” Porter said. “We lost a lot of people due to injuries, and she walked on the team and fit in perfectly. She’s learning the plays in practice and doing well adjusting. You know, Coach Fred is kind of a tough coach, and she’s used to that type of stuff. She fits right in. And I’m really proud of her for being shot ready coming off the bench.”

With the victory, Buffalo (16-10, 9-6) moves into sole possession of fourth place in the conference standings, breaking a tie with BGSU. They’ve won three straight and five of the past six in the series. The Falcons conclude the home portion of their regular season against Miami on Saturday at 2 p.m.