.png&type=webp)
Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
TOLEDO
We're Going Streaking: Falcons Down UT, 70-53, for School Record-Tying 21st Win in a Row
February 12, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 12, 2009
Final Stats | BGSU-Toledo Boxscore in PDF Format 
| BGSU-UT Photo Gallery 
POSTGAME AUDIO: 
UT Coach Cullop
| BGSU Coach Miller
| BGSU - Pontius & Uhl
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSUFalcons.com) - Four players scored in double digits as the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team won the latest edition of the 'Battle of I-75' with a 70-53 victory over the University of Toledo. The Mid-American Conference game was held at venerable Anderson Arena Thursday night (Feb. 12).
With the win, the Falcons improve to 21-2 on the season, and BGSU remains undefeated in MAC play with a 10-0 conference record. The Falcons have won 21 consecutive games, tying the school record, after beginning the season with a pair of losses.
The victory was the Falcons' 11th in a row against the Rockets, the longest winning streak for either team in the storied series.
 |
|
The Rockets drop to 13-10 overall and 7-3 in MAC action. UT is tied for second place in the West Division, a game in back of Ball State.
Sophomore Tracy Pontius scored a game-high 17 points, including a back-breaking three-pointer in the final minutes, and led all players with six assists. Fellow soph Jen Uhl had 14 points and a game-high nine rebounds, adding three steals and a pair of blocked shots. Uhl, who played a career-high 33 minutes, fell just one rebound shy of a double-double for the second consecutive game.
Sophomore Lauren Prochaska scored 13 points, while junior Tara Breske had 10 points and seven boards.
For the Rockets, Tanika Mays led a balanced scoring attack with 11 points, while Allie Clifton and Naama Shafir had 10 apiece.
Much like the BGSU-UT men's basketball game on Wednesday night (also a Falcon win), the Brown and Orange broke out to an early lead. The Falcons scored somewhat easily on each of the game's first two possessions, as Breske fired a pass to Uhl for a layup, and senior Lindsey Goldsberry's pass found Pontius for a backdoor layup. Just 39 seconds into the game, the Falcons had a 4-0 lead.
UT came back to tie the score at 4-4, but the hosts then scored the game's next 11 points. Breske made back-to-back layups, before Uhl made a nifty play at the offensive end. The soph grabbed an offensive rebound in traffic, and saved the ball to Pontius just before falling out of bounds. Pontius, in the left corner, quickly whipped a pass to Prochaska, who fired a left-elbow three-pointer that gave the Falcons an 11-4 advantage.
Then, Pontius picked Shafir's pocket at midcourt and sailed in for a layup, prompting a UT timeout. A minute later, two Pontius free throws put the Falcons ahead by a 15-4 count with less than five minutes elapsed.
After scoring those 15 points in the first five minutes, however, BGSU would go nearly five minutes before scoring again. The Rockets battled bacy with three consecutive layups to cut BG's lead to 15-10 with just over 10 minutes left in the half. The latter bucket, by Shafir, was followed by a Falcon timeout.
Out of that timeout, the Falcons -- and Uhl -- scored five-straight points. First, the soph took a pass from Pontius underneath the basket, and hit a layup as she was knocked to the ground. Then, she wandered outside the arc, received a pass from Goldsberry, and knocked down a three-pointer for a 20-10 lead.
The Rockets again battled back, scoring six-straight points to get within four, 22-18. But, Pontius threw an entry pass to sophomore Kelly Zuercher, who hit a layup at the shot-clock buzzer. Then, Pontius hit one of her patented three-pointers, dribbling around the top of the arc, finding herself unguarded, spotting up and firing on target. The Falcons led by nine with 4:43 left in the half.
Mays scored for the Rockets at the 3:33 mark, but Prochaska's pass found Zuercher for another layup, and Prochaska then drained a trey in the final minute of the half, giving the Brown and Orange a 32-20 lead at the break.
The Falcons got off to a slow second-half start, scoring-wise. UT scored six of the first eight points of the half to get within eight, before Pontius drove the lane and threw an over-the-head pass to Uhl on her right. Uhl's layup gave BG a 36-26 advantage.
The Rockets again scored six-of-eight points, getting within six points. After freshman Jessica Slagle's free throw gave the Falcons a 39-32 advantage, the BG bench was called for a technical foul. UT's Lisa Johnson split her two free-throw tries to cut BG's lead to six points.
On the ensuing possession, though, Slagle drove the lane and kicked the ball cross-court to a waiting Goldsberry. The senior co-captain, in front of the BG bench, hit a three-pointer to send the large crowd into a frenzy.
The visitors, however, got their fans back into the game, scoring the next five points. Shafir hit a layup out of a media timeout, then found Courtney Ingersoll for a triple, putting the Rockets within four, at 42-38.
The Falcons responded, as Prochaska scored on an acrobatic layup while being fouled. The sophomore's free throw gave BG a 45-38 lead with 10:23 left.
Johnson hit a jumper, before BG scored four-straight points from the free-throw line. Breske hit the latter two tosses, after getting back-to-back offensive rebounds on that possession.
Jessica Williams scored for the visitors, but Uhl spun and threw in a high, arcing one-handed shot from the right side, and BG's lead was back in double digits, at 53-42.
Mays came back with a three-point play, and an Ingersoll putback a few minutes later got the visitors within six points, at 55-49. But, the Falcons would go on a 15-4 run to end the game.
BG hit three free throws, and Breske took a Goldsberry pass and knocked down a tough turnaround fadeaway jumper, giving BG a 60-49 lead with four minutes left. Clifton scored for the Rockets, but Uhl answered with a layup at the 3:02 mark.
Ingersoll scored for the Midnight Blue and Gold, but Pontius then hit a back-breaking shot, taking a cross-court pass from Breske and drilling a left-side triple with 2:12 left. The Falcons' lead was 12 points.
That Pontius trey began a game-ending 8-0 run, with the remaining five points all coming from the charity stripe. Down the stretch, Uhl thwarted back-to-back Rocket possessions, getting a steal immediately after the Pontius trey, then blocking a Williams layup try with 1:22 to go.
Goldsberry scored five points for the Falcons, adding four assists and a game-high four steals, while Zuercher and sophomore Chelsea Albert had four points apiece.
The Falcons shot 47.8 percent for the game, including a 52.2% rate in the first half, while UT shot 43.6% on the evening. BG made six three-point field goals to just one for the Rockets, and the Falcons outscored the visitors by 16 points at the free-throw line, going 20-of-25 to UT's 4-of-6.
The Falcons held a 31-27 rebounding advantage, and harassed the visitors into 23 turnovers, including 11 by Shafir. To UT's credit, the Rockets forced 21 BG turnovers on the night.
BGSU will be back at "The House That Roars" on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 15), hosting Central Michigan University in a 3:30 p.m. start.
NOTES
* BGSU has tied the school record for consecutive wins, with 21 in a row ... the 1986-87 team also won 21-straight games under head coach Fran Voll ... the Falcons' 1988-89 and 1993-94 teams posted 20 consecutive wins apiece.
* According to the MAC women's basketball media guide, BGSU's current streak is tied for the second-longest in conference history ... Central Michigan holds the league record, with 26 consecutive wins during the 1983-84 season.
* BG has now won 19 consecutive MAC regular-season games ... that is the fourth-longest such streak in school history and the sixth-longest streak in MAC annals ... the 2006-07 Falcons hold the record with 33 consecutive conference regular-season victories ... BG holds the top-two spots and four of the top-six places on that list.
* BGSU now leads the all-time series with Toledo, 39-25, and the Falcons have won 11 consecutive meetings with the Rockets, the longest streak in series history.
* Falcon coach Curt Miller is now 11-2 all-time vs. UT.
* BGSU's 21-game winning streak is the second-longest active win streak in the nation ... #1 Connecticut has won 24 consecutive games.
* The Falcons have won 15 consecutive home games, tied for the eighth-longest active homecourt winning streak in the country.
* The Falcons both started and ended the game on 15-4 runs.
* Sophomore Jen Uhl was making her second career start, and her second in as many games ... in those two games, the Wadsworth, Ohio, native has averaged 12.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 2.5 steals per contest.
* BGSU is now 10-0 at Anderson Arena this season ... the Falcons have posted a double-digit home win total for the fourth consecutive year ... during that time, the Brown and Orange has posted a 43-4 mark at "The House That Roars."
* Overall, the Falcons are now 150-35 over the last five-plus years, with 2008-09 marking BG's sixth-straight season of over 20 wins.
* Senior Lindsey Goldsberry has become only the seventh player in school history to record over 200 career steals ... the Dayton native now has 201 career steals, just one behind sixth-place Liz Honegger (2003-07) ... Lindsay Austin (2000-04) holds the school record with 244 career steals.
* Lauren Prochaska, only a sophomore, now has 893 career points in her Falcon career ... she moved past Dee Knoblauch (885 pts. from 1979-83) and Sherry Kahle (886 from 1996-2000) into 27th place on the school career scoring list.
* Prochaska, who leads the entire country in free-throw percentage, went 5-of-5 from the line on Thursday night ... she is now 100-of-105 (95.2%) on the year, and has made 43 consecutive free throws.
