Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
NORTHERN ILLINOIS
Another Falcon Comeback Leads to Win at NIU, MAC Regular-Season Championship
March 01, 2005 | Women's Basketball
March 1, 2005
Final Stats | Quotes
DeKALB, Ill. - No one said winning a Mid-American Conference championship would be easy.
The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, trailing by seven points with just over four minutes left, rallied for a 75-72 win at Northern Illinois University Tuesday night (March 1) at the Convocation Center.
With the win, the Falcons improve to 20-7 on the year, and the Falcons end the regular season with a MAC record of 13-3, the league's best mark. NIU drops to 7-20 and 4-12, respectively.
Sophomores Liz Honegger and Ali Mann tied for BG scoring honors to lead four Falcon players in double digits. Honegger scored 20 points on her 20th birthday, and also had a game-high 12 rebounds and a BG-leading five assists. Her assist total was a career high, and she tied a season and career best by making five three-point field goals.
Mann, coming off the bench for the first time this season after suffering an injury in the Falcons' last game, had her 20 points in 24 minutes.
Redshirt junior Casey McDowell scored 11 points and freshman Kate Achter had 10.
For the Huskies, Stephanie Raymond had 23 points and seven assists, playing all 40 minutes despite some first-half foul trouble. Jamie Wilson had 16 points and 11 rebounds, while Keishonda Williamson added 13 points.
The Falcons, in addition to picking up a league regular-season championship, earn the number-one seed for the Kraft MAC Tournament. BGSU will have a first-round bye, and will play a quarterfinal game on Wednesday, March 9, at 1:00 p.m. at Cleveland's Gund Arena. BGSU will meet the winner of the first-round game between #9 Western Michigan and #8 Miami.
Tuesday's game featured eight ties and a whopping 23 lead changes, with the lead changing hands 14 times in the first half alone. While the second half saw the lead switch back and forth nine times, the final 20 minutes was marked by several runs as the momentum went from the Falcons to the Huskies and back again.
NIU led by as many as seven points on two second-half occasions, the last at 69-62 after a 13-2 Huskie run in less than three minutes. After NIU took that lead, with 6:11 left, neither team scored for almost two minutes, before a Mann layup with 4:17 on the clock began a game-ending 13-3 Falcon run. Northern's only points over the final 6:11 came when Raymond banked home a three-point field goal with 20.8 seconds left.
The Basketball Hall of Fame will not be calling to request the video from the first few minutes of Tuesday's game. In BGSU's final regular-season contest as a member of the MAC's West Division, the Falcons and Huskies combined for exactly zero points in the first 3:35, with the game's first 13 shots missing the mark. NIU got on the board with a layup by Alyssa Verdegan.
Hoops by Wilson and Raymond upped that lead to 6-0 before junior Jill Lause's pass found a wide-open Honegger for a layup with 4:56 gone in the contest. The Falcons had missed nine consecutive shots before that layup.
Honegger scored eight of the Falcons' first 10 points, the last six on a pair of three-point field goals. The first trey capped a 7-0 Falcon run to give BG the lead, and the second gave the Falcons a 10-8 advantage at the 12:58 mark.
Mann entered the game for the first time with 9:28 left in the opening half, and wasted no time in making her presence felt. She hit a long jumper, with her toe on the three-point line, less than a minute after taking the floor, giving BG a 17-16 lead.
Then, Mann dove headlong onto the floor in front of the BG bench, in pursuit of a rebound, and the Falcons wound up with possession. Less than a minute after that play, Mann took a Honegger pass and hit a trey to put the Brown and Orange ahead by a 20-18 margin with 6:02 left.
The only points over the next three-plus minutes came at the free-throw line. NIU's Rachel Sillar made the first three of those charity tosses, but Achter drove and drew Raymond's third foul with 3:28 left in the half. Achter made the ensuing free throws, giving BG a 22-21 lead.
But, a Wilson reverse layup was followed by a steal and a Raymond layup on the break. For the first time in 12 minutes, the margin was greater than two points, as NIU led by a 25-22 count.
Achter hit a jumper, but Sillar gave the hosts a four-point lead with a three-ball at the 2:13 mark. A Honegger three-point play cut the lead to a single point with 1:23 left, and McDowell hit a triple to tie the score with 52 seconds left. Williamson, however, closed the first-half scoring, as her jumper with 37 seconds on the clock put the Huskies up, 32-30, at the break.
On the opening possession of the second half, Mann blocked a Northern shot attempt. Then, at the other end, she grabbed a teammate's miss and tied the game with a layup.
A McDowell three-pointer gave the Falcons a 35-33 lead, and after Achter made a pair of shots, the BG lead was three points, at 39-36. But, Raymond hit a triple, then made a nifty touch pass to Wilson, and Northern led by two.
The Huskies weren't done, as Williamson hit a left-side jumper out of the 16-minute media timeout, and Raymond stole the ball and went coast to coast for a layup. The run was 9-0, and the hosts led by six points.
Mann stopped the bleeding with a rebound and putback, but Wilson scored in the paint. Again, Mann converted a jumper, but Raymond got free for another trey, and the NIU lead was 50-43 as the Falcons took time.
Out of the timeout, however, it was BGSU's turn to seize the momentum. Three three-pointers in under two minutes led to a 9-2 Falcon run that tied the score at 52-52. Sophomore Carin Horne hit the first of those treys, from the left side, and after a Williamson jumper at the other end, Honegger hit a straight-on three. She scored six consecutive points to draw BG even with 11:28 left.
Two Northern hoops were answered by BGSU triples, by Honegger and Mann, and the Falcons led by two. Then, senior Tene Lewis hit a layup on the break, and BG was up, 60-56, with 9:02 left.
But, a three-point play by Raymond began a 5-0 NIU run to give the hosts the lead. Mann hit a layup with exactly eight minutes left, but the Huskies scored the next eight points to cap the 13-2 run. In that run, Williamson hit a long three, and Raymond drilled a triple to put the home team ahead, 69-62.
Neither team would score for the next 1:54, before Mann's driving layup cut the lead to five points. Mann was fouled on the play, and missed the free-throw try. But, after the Huskies grabbed the rebound, Lewis immediately stole the ball and drew another foul. She hit her second charity toss to cut the lead to 69-65 with 4:09 on the clock.
A McDowell three-pointer with 2:35 left cut the lead to a single point, and the Falcons forced a NIU miss on the next possession. Horne got the rebound, then took a Mann pass and hit a trey with 1:56 left, giving BG the lead for good. But, of course, the game was far from over.
Again, NIU missed at the other end, and Honegger rebounded. The teams exchanged errant shots, and the Falcons got the ball back. Another BG shot was off the mark, but the Falcons got the offensive rebound, and the seas parted for Lewis as she drove down the lane for an uncontested layup with 29.9 seconds left.
Northern was not finished, though. After a Huskie timeout, Raymond banked home a three-point try with 20.8 seconds left. BG inbounded the ball, and Raymond fouled Horne with 19.6 seconds on the clock.
Horne missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity, and the Huskies got the ball back, trailing by a single point. At the other end of the floor, Raymond was fouled with 11.4 seconds left, but missed the front end of her one-and-one. Mann got the rebound, was fouled, and the sophomore converted both of her free throws with 10.3 seconds left, putting the visitors ahead by three points.
The Huskies had one more chance, and tried to free Raymond for a three-point try. The BG defense did not let her get free for a shot, and she passed the ball to Wilson at the top of the arc. Wilson's shot caromed off the rim as the buzzer sounded, and BG had the victory.
The Falcons made a season-high 13 three-point field goals in 28 attempts, good for a 46.4 percent success rate from long range. Honegger tied her career high with five successful triples, while Horne and McDowell made three apiece and Mann two.
BGSU shot 40.3% from the field on the night, while NIU used a 16-for-27 (59.3%) second-half performance to shoot an even 50.0% for the game. The Huskies were 6-of-11 (54.5%) from beyond the arc, with Raymond making four of her six triple tries.
The teams each had 38 rebounds on the night, with the Falcons pulling down 14 offensive boards to the Huskies' eight.
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