Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
IUPUI
Falcons Rebound For Victory, 69-59
December 30, 2002 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 30, 2002
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team rallied from a double-digit deficit to post a 69-59 victory over visiting IUPUI Monday night (Dec. 30) in non-conference action at Anderson Arena.
With the victory, the Falcons move to 6-4 on the season, and BGSU has won four of the last five games. The visiting Jaguars drop to 3-7 overall.
The Falcons weathered a hot-shooting first half by the visitors to earn the win. BGSU won the battle of the boards, holding a 40-33 rebounding advantage. The Brown and Orange outrebounded the visitors by a 27-14 margin after the intermission.
Freshman Jill Lause had the finest game of her young career, making all six of her field-goal attempts en route to a season-high 14 points. Junior Stefanie Wenzel also had 14 points, and tied for game honors with eight rebounds.
For the visitors, Tiffany Kyser led the way with 17 points and eight rebounds, while Jessica James had 14 points off the bench.
Kyser scored the Jaguars' first nine points, and had 13 of the team's first 17 points in the contest. She made her first seven shots, and helped the visitors build an early lead. After junior Lindsay Austin's game-opening layup, the Falcons did not lead again in the first half.
IUPUI began the game by making 7-of-8 shots en route to a .577 field-goal percentage in the first half. The Jaguars built the biggest lead of the game, 33-22, with 3:44 left in the half. BGSU rallied, however, going on a 15-5 run to end the first 20 minutes.
BGSU scored the last seven points of that first half, with freshmen doing all of the damage. After Lause got a rebound and layup with 58 seconds remaining, Marisa Smith made a steal and drew a foul. She sank both free throws to cut the deficit to four points with 30 seconds left.
Then, after a Jaguar miss with 12 seconds left in the half, the Falcons held for the last shot. Wenzel's pass found Smith for a big three-point field goal with just three seconds remaining, cutting the deficit to a single point at the break.
Both teams struggled to find the range in the early moments of the second half. Lause made a pair of free throws with just over three minutes elapsed, then got a rebound layup to give BG a 43-42 lead, the Falcons' first lead since 2-0, with 16:22 left.
The lead would change hands five times in the next few moments, before the visitors took a seven-point advantage on an Angela Dancy three-pointer with 10:22 remaining. Up 56-49, the Jaguars would score just three points the rest of the way.
BGSU rallied to score the game's next nine points. Wenzel grabbed an offensive rebound and converted a layup while being fouled with 8:43 left. Her free throw capped the three-point play and brought BG within a single point, 56-55. Less than a minute later, sophomore Tene Lewis split a pair of free throws to tie the score.
Then, neither team would score for over two minutes. Kyser, who had scored 15 points in the first half, made a steal and went in all alone for a layup with 5:50 left, giving IUPUI a 58-56 lead. That layup represented Kyser's only points of the second stanza.
BGSU responded seconds later, as senior Francine Miller found Marisa Smith for her second three-pointer of the game. That trey, Smith's second in as many tries on the night, gave BG the lead for good.
Lause scored the next four points, giving the Falcons a 63-58 lead, and Wenzel rebounded a Jaguar miss. Miller misfired on a field-goal attempt, but Lewis grabbed the rebound and got the ball back to Miller. The senior was fouled and converted both charity tosses with 1:01 left, giving BGSU a 65-58 lead.
After an IUPUI turnover, junior Lindsay Austin was fouled and hit both free throws. IUPUI got one more point, on a Dancy free throw with 19 seconds left, but Wenzel answered with a pair of tosses to close the scoring.
In addition to Lause and Wenzel, Austin and Miller had double-digit scoring efforts for the Falcons. Austin had 11 points, six rebounds and five assists, while Miller had 10 points and a career-high six steals in the win.
Lewis had six rebounds and three steals in her 13 minutes off the bench, while Lause had five rebounds in a season-high 26 minutes.
Dancy had 10 points to join Kyser and James in double figures for the visitors.
After allowing the visitors to shoot .577 from the floor before halftime, the Falcons held IUPUI to just a .300 success rate in the final 20 minutes. IUPUI shot .429 to the Falcons' .407 for the game.
The Falcons begin the 2003 calendar year and close the non-conference portion of the schedule with a Friday (Jan. 3) game at Oakland. Tipoff is set for 7:00 p.m.
