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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
Kent State (Championship)
MAC CHAMPS! Falcons Top Kent State, 81-75
March 12, 2005 | Women's Basketball
March 12, 2005
Final Stats | Associated Press story | Notes | Photo Gallery
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Freshman Kate Achter scored 21 points and earned tourney Most Valuable Player honors as the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team downed Kent State University, 81-75, to win the 2005 Kraft Mid-American Conference Tournament.
With the win Saturday afternoon (March 12) at Cleveland's Gund Arena, the top-seeded Falcons earn the MAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Championships. BGSU improves to 23-7 on the season, while KSU, the #2 seed for the league tourney, drops to 21-9.
BGSU will learn its next opponent, and the date and site of that game, on Sunday (March 13) evening. The 64-team bracke for the 2005 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship will be announced at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday, on ESPN.
The MAC Tournament title was the Falcons' first since 1994, and the seventh overall. BGSU is now tied for Toledo for the most league tourney crowns.
The Falcons are now 7-1 all-time in the MAC Tournament's championship game. BGSU has been the number-one seed six times, and won the tourney title all six years.
The Falcons got a balanced scoring effort, as sophomore Liz Honegger had 20 points and classmate Carin Horne scored 17. That offset a monster game by KSU's Lindsay Shearer, who set a MAC Tournament record with 44 points. Shearer made 17-of-23 field goals, grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds, and had 31 of the Golden Flashes' 49 points in the second half.
 Curt Miller cuts down the nets after the Falcons won the 2005 Kraft MAC Tournament championship (BGSU Photo/Brad Phalin)  |
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The Flashes scored the first points of the game, on a layup by Shearer, of course, but BGSU responded with an 8-0 run. McDowell drained a right-side three-point field goal, and a steal by sophomore Ali Mann led to an Achter coast-to-coast layup while drawing a foul. She sank the free throw, then scored again on a driving, twisting jumper.
The Flashes battled back, however, and BG's cause was hindered when Mann was called for her second foul of the game less than four minutes in. Shearer scored KSU's first four baskets of the day, with the last tying the game at 10-10.
Honegger hit a jumper in the paint, but Melissa DeGrate -- like Shearer an All-MAC First-Team selection -- nailed a three-pointer to give KSU a 13-12 lead. Mann, back in the game with those two fouls, drew a foul on Mallorie Griffith and hit a free throw to knot the game at the 11:49 mark.
Honegger hit a triple, which would give the Falcons the lead for good, with 10:56 left in the half. KSU's Malika Willoughby brought the Flashes within a point, but a Kapferer jumper was followed by a Honegger trey to give the Falcons a 21-15 lead.
A McDowell trey capped a 12-2 BG run and gave the Falcons a nine-point margin. Neither team scored for nearly two minutes, before a Willoughby jumper at the 4:57 mark.
Then, Kapferer's three-point try from the left side hit the rim, caromed straight up into the air and dropped through the hoop, giving BG the first double-digit lead of the day.
The Flashes got within five points on a DeGrate trey, but senior Tene Lewis found Achter for a right-side jumper just before the shot-clock buzzer, giving BG a seven-point lead with 1:37 left in the half. A Willoughby free throw completed the first-half scoring.
While BG never trailed in the second half, Shearer and the Golden Flashes did not exactly go away quietly. Shearer had a game-high 13 points in the first half, and proceeded to more than double that total in the second half. She went 11-for-15 from the field while playing the entire 20 minutes after intermission.
Achter, Honegger and Kapferer all were 3-of-5 from the field in the opening half, with the latter two players scoring eight points apiece and Achter adding seven.
The second half began at a furious pace. The two teams, after combining for 58 points in the opening half, had a total of 30 points in the first 5:18 of the second stanza.
Honegger answered a DeGrate jumper with a three-ball, the first of four long-range makes in that opening 5:18. But, Shearer responded with a three-point play, drawing Mann's third foul of the game. Honegger hit another trey off of an Achter offensive board, putting the Falcons up by seven, but Mann was called for her second foul in 39 seconds -- and her fourth of the game -- with 18:18 on the clock.
Shearer scored again, but Achter drove and converted, drawing a Willoughby foul and completing a three-point play. Horne rebounded a miss and hit a layup to give the Falcons a double-digit lead.
After a DeGrate jumper, McDowell hit from beyond the arc. The end-to-end action continued, as La'kia Stewart scored for the Flashes. But, BGSU was answering KSU's two-pointers with three-pointers, and a Horne triple gave the Brown and Orange a 12-point lead at 49-37.
Shearer answered with a jumper before, mercifully, the media timeout arrived. The Falcons started the second half by making 6-of-9 shots from the field, including 4-of-6 from three-point land. Meanwhile, however, the Flashes made six of the first seven shots of the half over the first five-plus minutes.
Shearer, of course, was on fire, scoring 23 of KSU's first 42 points, including a three-point play with 13:44 left to cut the BG lead to nine. Senior co-captain Tene Lewis drew a Shearer foul and hit both free throws 34 seconds later.
Then, Achter drove and drew a KSU foul, and hit both ends of her charity tosses, and the lead was 13.
The Falcons still held that margin wth 10:36 left, after a Horne trey upped BG's edge to 60-47. Shearer and Stewart hit layups, but Achter got Willoughby to commit her fourth foul with 8:47 left, and the freshman's ensuing free throws put BG back up by double digits.
A Willoughby three-pointer was answered by yet another conventional three-point play at the 7:34 media timeout, but a layup by DeGrate was followed by a long Shearer triple, and BG's lead was just six points. That lead became only four after KSU got the ball back on an alternate possession and Shearer scored yet again.
Honegger hit a free throw, but a jumper by -- guess who? -- brought Kent within three points with 5:23 left. But, Achter got herself back to the line for two tosses, and a Mann free throw with 4:09 left extended BG's lead to 69-63.
KSU, of course, was not finished. Shearer drew Honegger's fourth foul of the game with 3:58 left, and hit two free throws out of the game's final media timeout. Exactly one minute later, Honegger drilled a three from the left corner, with Achter picking up the assist, but Shearer responded with a triple of her own to cut the lead to four points with 2:48 left.
Mann, who had not yet scored a basket in her limited action to that point, lost her defender, and Achter found the sophomore for a layup at the 2:21 mark.
After two more Shearer free throws, Horne hit a big jumper at the 1:52 mark. Stewart answered that shot with a layup with 1:36 left.
The two players traded hoops again, this time from outside the arc. Horne hit a clutch three-pointer with just 1:08 left, upping BG's lead to 79-72. But, Stewart responded with her first triple of the entire season, and the lead was four with 54.3 seconds left.
The Falcons worked the shot clock down to its final seconds, but a BG three-point try was off the mark. The Flashes grabbed the rebound, but would turn the ball over. Honegger grabbed the loose ball and was fouled by Shearer with 16.2 seconds left.
The sophomore hit both free throws for a six-point lead, and a three-point try was off the mark for the Flashes. McDowell grabbed the rebound as the buzzer sounded.
The Falcons shot 56.5 percent from the field in the second half, making 13-of-23 field-goal tries, en route to a 51.0% rate for the game. For their part, the Golden Flashes made 19-of-34 shots (55.9%) in the second half and shot an even 50.0% on the afternoon.
BGSU made a whopping 12 three-pointers in 21 attempts (57.1%), the second-highest total of successful treys in league tournament history. KSU was 7-of-19 from beyond the arc.
BG was 19-for-23 (82.6%) from the free-throw line, led by Achter's 11-for-11 day. Shearer was 17-of-23 from the field and 7-for-7 from the stripe en route to her point total, the second highest in the NCAA this season.
Honegger made five three-pointers in seven attempts, while both Horne and McDowell hit on three trey tries. Shearer was 3-for-4 from long distance to lead the Golden Flashes.
Honegger led BG with seven rebounds, as the Falcons trailed KSU by one, 28-27, in that department. Horne had six boards, three blocked shots and four steals, while Achter had five assists to lead the Brown and Orange.
McDowell and DeGrate each played the entire 40 minutes for their respective teams.
Only four different players scored for Kent State. In addition to Shearer's 44 points, DeGrate scored 14 and Stewart had nine off the bench. Willoughby had eight points and a game-high eight assists.
DeGrate and Shearer joined Achter, Honegger and McDowell on the all-tourney team.
NOTES
(For additional notes, click on the link at the top of this page)
