Bowling Green State University
.png&width=60&height=60&type=webp)
WESTERN MICHIGAN
Falcons Best MAC-Leading Broncos, 69-67, On Austin's Buzzer-Beater
February 07, 2004 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 7, 2004
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Senior Lindsay Austin hit a jumper in the lane as time expired, giving the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team a 69-67 win over Western Michigan University Saturday afternoon (Feb. 7). The Mid-American Conference game was held at BGSU's Anderson Arena.
With the victory, the Falcons improve to 13-7 overall and 6-3 in the MAC. BGSU has topped the team's win totals for all of last season (12-16, 5-11). Western Michigan, the MAC West Division leader, fell to 13-8 and 8-2, respectively.
The Falcons' other senior, Stefanie Wenzel, led all players with 23 points, while freshman Ali Mann had a double-double with 18 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Another freshman, Liz Honegger, had 13 points for the Brown and Orange.
For the Broncos, Maria Jilian led four double-digit scorers with 20 points, while Carrie Moore had 15. Casey Rost, the MAC's leading scorer, had 13 and Kelly Koerber 11. Jilian, Moore and Rost all played the game's entire 40 minutes.
With time running down on the game clock, Austin got the ball at the top of the three-point arc. She drove to her left, got herself into the lane and took a jumper from approximately 10 feet away as the buzzer sounded. The ball hit the rim, glanced off the backboard, hit the rim again and dropped through, sparking a wild celebration among the BGSU players and Falcon faithful.
The back-and-forth game featured no fewer than 17 ties and 12 lead changes. The first half featured six of those ties, and nearly a seventh, as Honegger's three-point attempt just before the end of the half was in and out.
Neither team led by more than five points in the first 20 minutes. Both the Falcons and the Broncos scored 16 points in the paint in the half, and each team had nine points off turnovers. Wenzel and Jilian led their respective teams with 12 points each at the break.
In the second half, the Broncos led a tight game in the early going. Freshman Megan Thorburn provided a spark for the Falcons, sandwiching two nifty assists around a pair of free throws. She fed Honegger underneath to bring the Falcons within a point, then drew a foul and made both shots to put BG up one. After a Lori Crisman layup at the other end, Thorburn found Mann inside for another layup at the 16:34 mark.
The game was back-and-forth for the next few minutes. Austin was saddled with foul trouble for much of the afternoon, picking up her third foul with 16:04 remaining and her fourth with 12:19 left.
The Broncos, despite Crisman going out of the game with her fourth foul at the 9:39 mark, stayed close. Moore helped the visitors tie the contest at the 8:06 mark, finishing off an offensive possession in which she got four rebounds with a pair of free throws. That tied the game at 53-53, the sixth tie of the half.
Mann answered with a step-back three, but Rost equalized with a triple at the other end, her lone trey of the game, at the 6:29 juncture.
After nearly nine minutes on the bench, Austin returned to the game with 3:35 left and the score tied at 63. Koerber gave the Broncos a two-point lead, off a nifty assist by Moore, with 2:12 left, but an offensive rebound and driving layup by Wenzel tied the score with 1:44 remaining.
Rost drew a foul at the other end, and split her free throws. Then, Mann drew a Bronco foul and hit both shots to put BG up, 67-66, with 1:06 remaining.
After a Bronco timeout, Jilian missed a three-point attempt, and the airball landed out of bounds with 39.1 seconds left. The visitors nearly got a steal when the Falcons inbounded the ball, but -- after a BG timeout -- Rost fouled Austin near midcourt.
Austin missed both free throws, however, and Rost rebounded the ball with 30.5 seconds left and the Broncos down a point.
WMU called a timeout, and the Falcons fouled on the inbounds pass. Jilian made her first free-throw attempt with 23.6 seconds left, but missed the second shot. Mann rebounded the ball, and BG headed downcourt, setting the stage for Austin's game-winning hoop.
BGSU shot .424 for the game, to WMU's .412 field-goal percentage. The Falcons held WMU to just a 9-for-24 effort (.375) in the second half.
The Falcons outrebounded the visitors by a 40-31 count, with Mann pulling down 12 and Wenzel nine. Moore led Western with nine rebounds, including seven at the offensive end, and Crisman had eight.
Austin had seven points and a game-high six assists in 25 minutes, while Honegger had six rebounds, three assists and a game-high four steals.
BGSU now hits the road for a pair of games, taking on Ohio University Wednesday (Feb. 11) and Central Michigan University on Valentine's Day.
NOTES
