Bowling Green State University
High Point
Justinger's Career Night Helps Falcons Survive and Advance
March 20, 2014 | Women's Basketball
Sophomore scores career-high 22 points as BGSU downs High Point, 72-62
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POSTGAME AUDIO: Justinger | Justinger & Roos
VIDEO: BGSU-HPU Highlights | Postgame Interviews
PHOTO GALLERY: Bianca Garza, BGSU Mkt. & Comm.
WNIT BRACKET: Through Thursday night's games
With the win, the Falcons improve to 28-4 on the season, and BGSU advances to the second round of the 64-team tournament. BG will face either St. Bonaventure or Charlotte, with the date and site of the Falcons' next game to be determined. Charlotte plays at SBU Friday night (March 21), with the second-round date, site and start time to be announced following the conclusion of that game.
High Point ends the season with a record of 22-11.
Justinger scored 15 of her 22 points in the second half, and paced four double-digit scorers for the Brown and Orange. Senior Alexis Rogers had 14 points, while redshirt sophomore Erica Donovan added 11 points and junior Jasmine Matthews 10.
Senior Jill Stein scored six points and pulled down a team-leading 12 rebounds as BGSU had a 44-37 advantage on the glass. Stein also had four assists to tie Justinger for the team lead in the win, along with two blocked shots.
In addition to points, Justinger also led all players in steals, with four. Rogers fell just one rebound shy of a double-double, with nine boards in the win, and had three assists and three steals.
Stacia Robertson led High Point with 15 points and 13 rebounds, while both Kaylah Keys and Latrice Phelps had 13 points in the game.
The game featured nine ties and seven lead changes. BGSU fell behind by 10 points early in the contest, and the Falcons trailed by eight late in the first half before going on a 10-1 run in the span of just over a minute to take a 33-32 lead into the intermission.
The second half was a back-and-forth affair in the early going, but the Brown and Orange finally took the lead for good when senior Jillian Halfhill's long pass found Justinger for a transition layup with exactly nine minutes to go.
BG upped the lead to 10 points, 63-53, with just over four minutes remaining, but the Panthers cut the deficit to four points on a Keys three-pointer with 2:20 to go. But, a Justinger layup began a 5-0 run, giving the Falcons a relatively comfortable nine-point lead with a minute remaining.
The Falcons struggled from the field at the start of the game, to put it mildly. BGSU went 0-for-7 before Stein found Rogers for a back-door layup at the 15:20 mark. That layup tied the score at 4-4.
But, the Panthers proceeded to score 10-straight points, as the Falcons missed six-straight shots (for a 1-for-14 start, if you're scoring at home) after the Rogers layup. DeAanneisha Jackson began that 10-0 run with a wide-open layup off of Ashante Richards' inbounds pass, prompting BG head coach Jennifer Roos to use a timeout.
That timeout did not slow down the visitors, however, as Lindsay Puckett sandwiched a pair of three-pointers around a Phelps jumper. Phelps assisted Puckett's second triple, and High Point had a 14-4 lead with nearly eight minutes gone as Roos used her second timeout of the night.
Finally, the Falcons got a bucket, as freshman Rachel Konieczki drove through a host of players and knocked down a layup at the 11:24 mark. That hoop snapped a BG scoreless stretch of just under four minutes.
The teams traded turnovers for the bulk of the next minute, before a Justinger steal led to a Rogers 'alley-oop' banker off of Halfhill's inbounds pass. Justinger came up with another steal, was fouled on her drive to the hoop and split a pair of free throws, cutting BG's deficit to 14-9 midway through the half.
The Falcons and Panthers traded buckets, with Stein hitting a layup, and Justinger taking a Matthews pass and knocking down a triple try. The home team trailed by four, and the deficit became just two points when Rogers put back a teammate's miss.
HPU quickly scored four points, but Rogers hit another layup, and Halfhill spotted Matthews ahead of the pack for a layup in transition. Then, Rogers' short pass across the paint found a cutting Donovan for an 'and-one' bucket, and Donovan's free throw gave the home team a 23-22 lead with 5:32 left to go before halftime.
The Panthers answered that 7-0 BG run with a 9-0 run of their own. Keys hit a pair of buckets just 17 seconds apart during that run, and the freshman split a pair of charity tosses with 1:29 left for a 31-23 lead. But, the Falcons again went on a run.
This time, the Brown and Orange scored 10 points in just 59 seconds. Rogers spotted Justinger for a left-side three at the 1:10 mark, and junior Deborah Hoekstra split a pair of free throws after a Justinger steal.
Donovan scored the Falcons' final six points of the half, all in the final minute. She hit two free throws with 47.8 seconds to go, and after Phelps split two tries, Donovan hit a short jumper with 32 seconds remaining. The redshirt sophomore deflected a High Point pass, got the ball back and hit a layup with 11 seconds on the clock to give the Falcons the lead, and Hoekstra blocked a layup try by Keys and grabbed the rebound as the horn sounded.
The Falcons shot 38.7 percent from the field in the first half, but BG ended the half making 11-of-17 shots after that 1-for-14 start.
Two Rogers free throws opened the second-half scoring, but the Panthers scored six-straight points, including a Teddy Vincent trey, for a 38-35 advantage. Stein put back her own missed shot to begin a 6-0 BG run, which included two Justinger charity tosses and another Stein layup. The latter bucket came after a drive and bounce pass by Justinger which left Stein wide open under the hoop, and BG had a 41-38 lead.
But, the visitors scored seven of the game's next nine points, with Jackson's layup giving High Point a 45-43 lead with 13:26 to go. BG's lone basket during that time came after a nice offensive rebound by Hoekstra, as she tapped the ball to Konieczki for a short jumper.
Donovan's jumper tied the score at 45-all, and Konieczki's nifty lob pass found Rogers underneath the hoop for a two-point lead. When Justinger drilled a corner three, the Falcons had a 50-45 advantage.
Once again, however, the visitors responded. The Panthers again scored seven of the next nine points, with a three-point play by Keys tying the score with 9:30 left. BG missed a shot and HPU got the ball back, but the Falcons forced a miss, Matthews grabbed the rebound and Halfhill fired a long pass ahead to Justinger for a transition layup and a 54-52 lead with 9:00 to go. A long two-pointer by Matthews doubled BG's advantage just under a minute later.
Jackson hit a free throw, but Justinger canned a jumper, then found Matthews for a transition layup and a 60-53 lead with 5:28 remaining. Moments later, Stein's long pass resulted in another transition layup by Matthews, as the junior laid the ball off glass while drawing a foul. Her free throw made it a 10-point game, 63-53, with 4:06 on the clock.
But, the Panthers weren't finished just yet. Vincent hit a three-pointer, and Robertson's free throws cut BG's lead to 63-58 with 3:31 left. Justinger knocked down two shots from the stripe, but a Keys triple made it a 65-61 game with 2:20 to go.
But, the Falcons used nearly all of the shot clock on the next possession, and Stein found Justinger inside for a layup and a 67-61 lead. Robertson missed a shot, with Rogers rebounding, and Robertson fouled Matthews with 1:24 left. The junior hit one of her two tosses. Then, Rogers stole the ball and Halfhill was fouled with sixty seconds on the clock. Her free throws gave the Falcons a 70-61 advantage, and salted away the win.
For the game, the Falcons had a 42-24 advantage in points in the paint, and BG enjoyed a 27-13 lead in both points off turnovers and bench scoring, with Justinger leading the way in the latter category.
BG shot 39.1% from the field for the game. HPU shot 40.0% from the floor, but just 34.6% in the second half.
Justinger went 3-of-7 from three-point range, but none of her teammates made a long-distance shot on the night. The Falcons were 3-of-17 from three-point land as a team. The Panthers were 5-of-13 from beyond the arc on the night, with both Puckett and Vincent going 2-for-4.
St. Bonaventure hosts Charlotte in a WNIT first-round game on Friday night (March 21) at 7:00 p.m. The winner of that game will face the Falcons in the second round, with the date, start time and site of that game determined after the conclusion of Friday's game.
FALCON NOTES
* BGSU now has an overall record of 5-5 in the WNIT ... the Falcons are 3-1 in the tourney under Jennifer Roos, after going 2-3 in WNIT action in the Curt Miller Era ... BG's other game in the tourney came in 1998, under head coach Jaci Clark.
* The Falcons are now a perfect 14-0 at the Stroh Center in 2013-14 ... BGSU has tied the school record for home wins in a season ... BG has won 14 home games in each of the last four seasons, and the Falcons have picked up 14 home victories in five of the last six years.
* As mentioned, the Falcons have won a school record-tying 14 games in each of the first three seasons in the Stroh Center ... BGSU is now 42-7 in games in the Stroh.
* On Thursday night, the Falcons trailed in the second half of a home game for the first time all season ... BGSU trailed for a total of just 19:29 in 520 minutes of action in the 13 regular-season games at the Stroh ... in fact, BG had not fallen behind later than the 12:40 mark of the first half of a home game until Feb. 5, when Western Michigan took the lead in the final minute of the opening period ... the Falcons, however, retook the lead for good just 19 seconds later in that game.
* BGSU now has 28 wins, tying for the third-highest total in school history ... a MAC school has posted 28 wins in a season seven times in conference history, and five of those seven such seasons belong to BG.
