Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
CENTRAL MICHIGAN
Records Aplenty as Falcons Down Central Michigan, 94-79
February 15, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2009
Final Stats |
Photo Gallery 
| BGSU-CMU Boxscore in PDF Format 
POSTGAME AUDIO: 
BGSU's Breske & Prochaska
| BGSU Coach Miller
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSUFalcons.com) - The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team enjoyed a record-setting day Sunday afternoon (Feb. 15), posting a 94-79 win over Central Michigan University. The Mid-American Conference game was held at venerable Anderson Arena on the BGSU campus.
With the win, the Falcons improve to 22-2 overall and 11-0 in MAC action. The Chippewas drop to 14-11 and 6-5, respectively.
BGSU has won 22 consecutive games, a new school record, after dropping the first two contests of the year. Additionally, the Falcons have clinched the East Division outright.
And -- oh by the way -- sophomore Lauren Prochaska shattered the school single-game record with 43 points in the win.
 |
MAC SINGLE-GAME RECORDS
Most Points 44 - Lindsay Shearer (KSU) vs. BGSU, 3/12/05 43 - Lauren Prochaska (BGSU) vs. CMU, 2/15/09 43 - Amanda Jackson (Miami) vs. UTEP, 12/29/07 43 - Ann Forbes (KSU) vs. BGSU, 3/13/92
|
Two CMU players combined for 53 points, as Shonda Long erupted for 29 and Britni Houghton had 24 off the bench. Angel Chan rounded out the game's double-digit scorers, with 16 points.
The Falcons shot 59.3 percent from the field on the afternoon, including a 19-for-30 (63.3%) effort in the second half. BG held CMU to a 39.1% field-goal rate.
Each team made 10 three-point field goals, with the Falcons shooting 52.6% (10-of-19) and Central 33.3% (10-for-30). Prochaska and Long made five long-range shots apiece to lead their respective clubs.
The Falcons trailed only once all day, but BG did not pull away until the final 10 minutes of the game. Central Michigan entered the game as one of the top-scoring teams in the nation, averaging over 80 points per game. But, in the early going, it looked like maybe, just maybe, the Falcons would run away with Sunday's game.
BGSU took a 9-2 lead with less than two minutes gone. After Prochaska and Breske hit layups in transition, the teams exchanged free throws before Prochaska took an inbounds pass from Pontius and knocked down a three-pointer at the 18:07 mark.
The lead was 12-4 after Pontius hit a three-ball of her own, but Long scored six quick points, in the span of 12 seconds. After banking home a three-point try, the Chippewas stole the ball in the backcourt, and Long completed a conventional three-point play.
 |
|
Breske found Pontius for a basket in transition, and the junior co-captain then grabbed her own miss and put it back up and in. Houghton responded with a layup, but Pontius and Prochaska each hit long-range shots for a 24-17 BG lead. Central called a timeout, with 11:53 left in the half.
Houghton's three-pointer stopped that brief 6-0 BG run, but the Falcons would proceed to score the game's next seven. All seven points came from the free-throw stripe, meaning that despite going five minutes and 19 seconds without a field goal, the hosts were able to increase the lead into double digits.
Brandie Baker's charity tosses cut BG's margin to nine points, 31-22, but senior co-captain Lindsey Goldsberry drained a triple try, giving the Falcons a 12-point advantage with 6:34 left before halftime. Layups by Breske and Prochaska upped the margin to 15 points, 38-23, before Central scored nine-straight points, capped by a pair of three pointers.
Following the second of those two treys, Prochaska came right back with a three-point play, giving BG a nine-point lead. Long's free throws cut BG's lead to 41-34 at the half.
The Falcons got off to a solid second-half start. After CMU's Kaihla Szunko was whistled for her fourth foul in the first minute of the half, Pontius found Prochaska for a three-pointer and a 10-point lead. The lead ballooned to 14 after layups by sophomore Jen Uhl and Breske, but Central scored five-straight points to cut the lead back to single digits.
CMU got as close as seven points on no fewer than five occasion, but BG continued to have an answer for every Central basket. Prochaska scored 12 consecutive Falcon points during that stretch, including a three-point play with 13:29 left and a layup at the 12:51 mark. After Breske converted a layup off of freshman Jessica Slagle's nifty pass, Prochaska scored BG's next five points.
The stellar soph made a three-pointer at the 11:58 mark to give BGSU a 67-57 lead, and after Long had responded with a triple, Prochaska came back with a jumper with 11:30 remaining. That shot gave the Plain City, Ohio, native 36 points to break the school record.
Pontius made a three-pointer, and junior Laura Bugher's entry pass resulted in Breske's jumper, giving BG a 74-60 lead. The Chippewas never got within single digits again.
Sophomore Chelsea Albert scored six points in a span of just 68 seconds, and Prochaska's 'and-one' layup gave the home team an 87-70 lead with 5:25 on the clock.
Chan scored inside with 4:38 left, but Clapper then scored five-straight points, with Pontius picking up a pair of assists, and BG's lead was a game-high 21 points. Central ended the afternoon on a 7-1 run.
Prochaska was 14-for-18 from the field, including a 5-for-8 performance from three-point range. She made 10 of her 11 free-throw tries, with her miss ending a streak of 45-straight successful tosses.
Albert matched Clapper with seven points, reaching that total in just four minutes of action.
Prochaska, in addition to her prolific point total, had seven rebounds, five assists and a pair of steals.
BGSU now returns to East Division play for the final five games of the regular season, beginning with Saturday's (Feb. 21) game at the University of Akron. The Falcons will play two road games (at Buffalo, Feb. 25) before returning home for a Feb. 28 game vs. Kent State University.
NOTES
* The Falcons have clinched the outright East Division title ... BGSU's win over CMU, combined witih Kent State's loss at Toledo Sunday afternoon, leaves the Falcons six games ahead of both KSU and Miami with five regular-season games remaining.
* BGSU's division title is the team's fifth MAC regular-season crown in a row, setting a school record and tying the MAC mark ... Kent State won five-straight titles from 1997-98 through 2001-02.
* The Falcons have clinched the #1 East seed for the MAC Tournament, and earn a first-round bye ... BG's first game in the tourney will come in the quarterfinal round on March 13 ... the MAC women's basketball format seeds teams by division (#1 East, #2 East, etc.) as opposed to #1 through #12.
* BGSU, as mentioned, increased the team's current winning streak to a school-record 22 games ... the old record was 21, set by Fran Voll's 1986-87 team.
* The Falcons also have won 17-straight games at Anderson Arena, 20 consecutive MAC regular-season games, 12 games in a row in the month of February, and eight-straight games in the CMU series.
* Sophomore Lauren Prochaska shattered the school single-game scoring record with 43 points vs. CMU ... prior to Sunday, the BG record was 35 points ... the revised top-five list ...
BGSU SINGLE-GAME SCORING
43 - Lauren Prochaska vs. Central Michigan, 2/15/09
35 - Francine Miller vs. Marshall, 2/17/01
35 - Francine Miller vs. Kent, 1/17/00
35 - Jacki Raterman vs. Ball State, 2/9/99
35 - Jackie Motycka vs. Washington State, 12/12/87
* Prochaska had 16 points in the first half, making 5-of-7 shots ... not bad ... but, in the second half, the soph scored an otherworldly 27 points, going 9-of-11 from the floor.
* Prochaska's prolific total was one point shy of the MAC record, set by Kent State's Lindsay Shearer against the Falcons ...
MAC SINGLE-GAME SCORING
44 - Lindsay Shearer (KSU) vs. BGSU, 3/12/05
43 - Lauren Prochaska (BGSU) vs. CMU, 2/15/09
43 - Amanda Jackson (Miami) vs. UTEP, 12/29/07
43 - Ann Forbes (KSU) vs. BGSU, 3/13/92
* Prochaska's Sunday scoring surge broke the record for a conference regular-season game ... the two games by Kent State players (both against BG) came in the MAC Tournament, and Miami's Jackson scored her 43 points in a non-conference game.
* The Falcons are now 107-17 overall and 55-4 in the MAC regular season in the past three-plus years, since senior Lindsey Goldsberry ventured to Northwest Ohio ... the school (and MAC) record for wins in a four-year span is 108, set by last year's senior class of Kate Achter and Whitney Taylor.
