Bowling Green State University Athletics
Achter Breaks Personal Career Point Total in Win at Belmont
November 18, 2007 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 18, 2007
NASHVILLE - Senior captain Kate Achter set a new personal high accounting for 29 of the Falcons 77 points en route to handing the Belmont University Bruins a 77-66 loss in their home arena, the Curb Event Center. Prior to the season, the Bruins held one of the nations longest home winning streaks but has since dropped two straight games, including today's bout with the Falcons. The Bruins are now 1-3 on the season while the Falcons advance to 3-0 overall.
Today marked the 10th time in her career that Achter has turned in a 20-plus point night and just the second in which she had netted more than 25. At half time, she was good for four points as a result of four free throws, but went on to record 25 in the second half alone. The senior point guard was 15-17 from the line and 7-12 from the field. She also grabbed five rebounds while dishing out six assists.
Rookie Jennifer Uhl had her biggest night as a Falcon scoring 17 points off the bench; nearly as many as the entire BU bench. The BGSU reserves contributed a total of 29 points while BU's bench put up 18.
Fellow freshman Lauren Prochaska scored in double figures for the third straight game and also gave a defensive showing that included four defensive rebounds and a block.
In the two previous tests in which the Falcons have played in, BG has led from buzzer to buzzer but today, on the other hand, Belmont led the Falcons by as many as six points for a span of nearly eight minutes. Prochaska helped the Falcons chip away at the BU lead connecting first on a three-point field-goal from the right wing and then two free throws on the following possession.
Sixty-one seconds after Prochaska rattled off her five points, Uhl made a twisting lay-up between a pair of Belmont post defenders to push the Falcons back ahead of the Bruins by a point, 13-12, with 11 minutes yet to be played in the first half. Laura Cowley then gave the lead back to the home squad with her successful jumper at 10:28, but it was Laura Bugher's lay-up in the proceeding seven seconds that handed the Falcons the lead back for good. Bugher ended the night with a career high six points.
The lead would change a total of four times and was tied once in the match-up; all five events occurred in the first 10 minutes of the game.
The Bruins brought the narrowed the difference back to a single point, 20-19, with Amber Rockwells's long range field-goal at 6:24, but by 4:27 the Falcons scored 11 unanswered points and were up 31-19. The next six points the Bruins scored would all come from the charity stripe.
With 00:02 on the clock, Jessica Bobbitt hit her only three pointer of the night and brought the Bruins within 10 points of the Falcons just before entering the break.
Bobbitt would go on to finish with 13 points and was one of four Bruins to score 10 or more points against the Falcons. While Belmont had the four players in double-figures, of the remainder of the scorers each contributed less than five points per person.
At the conclusion of the first 20 minutes, Uhl had already set new personal bests in rebounds and points. Due in part to Uhl's dominant first-half play, the BGSU bench was responsible for 21 first-half points where as the Belmont bench contributed six.
In each of the Falcons three games this season, BG has maintained the scoreboard advantage at the half.
Belmont opened the second half outscoring the Falcons 5-3 and cut the differential to eight points at 17:49, but it was Achter's first field goal of the night which sent the visitors back ahead by 10 points. BG built their biggest lead of 16 points (53-37) courtesy of another Uhl lay-up at 13:31. Before the night was over, the Falcons would benefit from similar circumstances once again.
Despite four occasions in which Belmont cut the lead to 10 points, and even two where the Bruins trailed by only nine, the Orange and Brown controlled the scoreboard throughout the remainder of the game.
After the final game horn sounded, Bowling Green had edged the hosts in almost every statistical category of the night including rebounds (37-36), points in the paint (32-18), points off turnovers (19-15) and second chance points (17-13).
The BG defense also forced 18 turnovers. To date, opponents are averaging 24.7 turnovers per game while the Falcons average 15.0 - producing a +9.7 margin in favor of BG.
The Falcons will now return home for a post-Thanksgiving contest as they welcome the Bonnies of St. Bonaventure to Anderson Arena on Saturday afternoon. The game, which will also serve as the second-half of a home double-header with the men's squad, is scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m.
##BGSU WOMEN'S BASKETBALL##
