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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
MIAMI (OH)
Falcons Roll Past RedHawks, 80-58
January 21, 2006 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 21, 2006
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team scored early and often Saturday afternoon (Jan. 21), posting an 80-58 win over Miami University. The Mid-American Conference game was held at Anderson Arena.
With the victory, the Falcons improve to 14-2 on the year, and complete the first round of play vs. the MAC's East Division with a perfect 5-0 league record. BGSU's next six games will come against West Division foes. The visiting RedHawks drop to 6-10 and 1-4, respectively.
Junior Liz Honegger scored a game-high 19 points for the Brown and Orange, with classmate Carin Horne close behind with 17. Ali Mann rounded out BG's double-digit scorers with 14 markers.
Sarah Hull led the visitors with 14 points, while Ashley Hawkins scored 10 off the bench.
BGSU used several first-half scoring runs to surge past the visitors, and the Falcon defense forced a total of 33 RedHawk turnovers, a season-high for a BG opponent. The Falcons held a 37-9 advantage in points off turnovers, including a whopping 23-0 margin in that category in the opening half of play.
After spotting the RedHawks three points on the game's opening possession, BGSU would score the next 11 points. Cindi Merrill, Miami's leading scorer on the season, hit that initial triple, but would be held to just three points over the rest of the afternoon. The BG defense held Merrill to just two field goals in 14 attempts on the day.
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Horne capped that initial run with a three-pointer just after the game's first media timeout, giving BGSU an 11-3 lead. The RedHawks then crept back into the game, as Amber Miller hit a jumper for the visitors. Mann countered with a three-ball, giving the hosts a 14-5 lead, but the 'Hawks responded with a 6-0 run. Katie Guerriero scored the first four points of that stretch, and a Jaclyn Leininger hoop cut the BG lead to just 14-11.
From there, however, it was all BGSU.
Following that Leininger basket, the Falcons closed the half on a 33-11 run, taking an insurmountable 47-22 halftime lead. Led by Honegger, BGSU went on a 12-0 run to take a 26-11 lead midway through the half.
Honegger scored 10 of the Falcons' 12 points during that run, including the first seven. She canned a jumper off a Casey McDowell pass, hit a layup after Mann's entry pass, and took a Jasmine McCall feed for a straightway three-pointer. That triple gave the Falcons a 10-point lead, 21-11, and prompted a Miami timeout. BG's lead would not fall below double digits the rest of the afternoon.
After a Horne steal, the junior fed McCall for a layup on the fast break. Then, out of a media timeout, McDowell again found Honegger for a jumper, this time from beyond the arc, and BG's lead was 26-11.
Merrill split a pair of free throws at the 9:38 mark to snap Miami's scoreless streak, but Mann came right back with a jumper. Guerriero's layup at the 7:59 juncture gave the visitors their first basket in over four minutes, but another 7-0 BG run all but sealed the deal.
Junior Megan Thorburn got the ball to classmate Amber Flynn for a layup, and Thorburn picked up another assist on yet another three-pointer from Honegger's hot hand. A Honegger layup gave the hosts a 35-14 advantage with five minutes left in the first half, and the Falcons extended the lead to 25 points at the intermission.
Honegger (15) and Horne (12) combined for 27 points in the first half, five more than Miami's team total. BGSU shot 54.8 percent from the floor in that opening 20 minutes, with that 17-for-31 rate including a 7-for-14 performance from three-point land.
Miami had just seven successful field goals and 19 turnovers in the first half, but the RedHawks got off to a good start in the second stanza. Miami scored eight of the half's first 10 points to but BG's lead under 20 points, at 49-30.
The closest Miami drew in the second half was 18 points on a pair of occasions, the last at 62-44 with just under 10 minutes left in the game. The Falcons responded with a pair of Mann jumpers, however, and the BG lead got as high as 27 points in the game's final five minutes.
For the game, the Falcons shot 44.3% from the field, while holding the 'Hawks to a 34.6% rate. BGSU made nine three-point field goals, with Horne and Honegger each hitting three shots from beyond the arc. Horne had a BG season-high six steals as the Falcons had 15 as a team.
McCall scored nine points, the highest total of her career to date, while sophomore Kate Achter had eight and classmate Whitney Taylor a season-high seven. Taylor went 3-for-4 from the field, adding two rebounds and a steal in just five minutes of action.
No fewer than 10 different Falcons had at least one assist, with Horne, McCall and McDowell each dishing out three. BG had 22 turnovers in the game, including 13 in the second half, and MU's Jenna Schone had five steals to lead her team.
BG, as mentioned, now begins a six-game stretch vs. MAC West Division opponents. The Falcons start with a Wednesday (Jan. 25) game at Central Michigan, before returning home for games against Western Michigan (Sat., Jan. 28) and Eastern Michigan (Wed., Feb. 1).
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