Falcons Dismantle Dayton, 65-40, Behind Dominant Second-Half Effort

Chrissy Steffen v Dayton - Dave Kielmeyer photo

The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team used a dominant defensive performance in the second half to pull away from the nationally-ranked University of Dayton Sunday afternoon (Dec. 30). The Falcons topped the Flyers, 65-40, at the Stroh Center.

FINAL STATISTICS: HTML | PDF
PHOTO GALLERY - Dave Kielmeyer, BGSU Marketing & Communications
POSTGAME AUDIO: Chrissy Steffen | Alexis Rogers | Jennifer Roos
Scroll down for video of the postgame interviews

With the win, the Falcons improve to 9-3 on the season, and BGSU has won six consecutive games. UD loses for the first time this year, dropping to 12-1. The Flyers entered the game ranked No. 14 in the nation in the latest USA Today Sports Top 25 poll, and 15th in the Associated Press poll.

The win was just the fifth against a nationally-ranked team in program history.

BGSU allowed Dayton to make a total of just four second-half field goals, and forced the Flyers into 21 turnovers on the afternoon.

Redshirt junior Alexis Rogers led the way in a multitude of categories for the Falcons, with 20 points, 10 rebounds and six steals. She posted game-high totals in all three categories.

Senior Chrissy Steffen and junior Jillian Halfhill scored 16 and 15 points, respectively. Steffen surpassed the 1,000-point mark for her career during a key second-half run. Halfhill pulled down nine rebounds and Steffen seven as the Falcons had a 43-39 margin on the glass. Sunday marked the first time Dayton had been outrebounded this season.

Additionally, the Flyers' point total was less than half of the team's season average. Dayton entered Sunday's action averaging 82.6 points per game, a figure which led the Atlantic 10 Conference and ranked among the top 10 in the nation.

No UD player reached double figures in the scoring column. Sam MacKay and Kelley Austria had eight points apiece for the Flyers.

The game featured seven ties and three lead changes, all in the opening half. Neither team led by more than four points in the opening period, and a layup by fifth-year senior Danielle Havel just before the halftime buzzer gave the Falcons a 28-25 lead at the intermission.

The Falcons' lead was a single point, 31-30, after a pair of free throws by UD's Andrea Hoover with 16:39 left. From that point on, however, the Falcons outscored the Flyers by a 34-10 count.

Steffen scored five-straight points, reaching the 1,000-point mark for her career in the process, to give the Falcons a 36-30 advantage. Then, after UD's Brittany Wilson hit a three-point field goal to cut that lead in half, the Brown and Orange proceeded to score the game's next 12 points.

BG held the Flyers scoreless for just under eight minutes during that 12-0 run, taking a 48-33 lead on a Halfhill jumper. UD finally broke the scoring drought on a layup by Olivia Applewhite with 6:55 remaining, but the home team responded with a 7-0 run to take a 20-point lead with just over five minutes left.

BGSU is now 5-31 in games vs. nationally-ranked teams in program history. The Falcons have a 4-12 mark in such games since Jennifer Roos arrived in Northwest Ohio. BGSU is now 3-4 in home games vs. top-25 opponents, including a 1-1 mark at the Stroh Center.

Sunday's game saw both teams get off to a slow start at the offensive end. After Cassie Sant scored for the Flyers on the game's first possession, neither team scored until Rogers hit a jumper with nearly four minutes gone.

The teams traded buckets until Rogers scored four-straight points, hitting two free throws and hitting a short-corner jumper to give BGSU its first lead of the day, 10-8. Rogers had eight of BG's first 14 points, including two more charity tosses that gave the Falcons a 14-12 advantage with 9:05 left before halftime.

Austria hit a three-pointer in transition for the visitors, but two Halfhill free throws gave the home team a 16-15 lead. BGSU would not trail again.

A Rogers triple from out top, after a baseline drive and pass from Steffen, gave the Falcons a four-point lead, 21-17, with just under five minutes left before halftime. The lead stayed between two and four points until another Austria triple cut BG's lead to one, 26-25, in the final minute of the half. After a BG miss on the next possession, however, freshman Miriam Justinger came up with an offensive rebound in traffic, flipping a pass to Havel as the clock wound down. Havel's layup just before the buzzer gave the hosts a three-point lead at the break.

In that first half, the Flyers shot 34.6 percent from the field to BGSU's 26.5%, with both teams making nine field goals. UD had a 26-21 rebounding edge, but the visitors committed 11 first-half turnovers to just three for the Falcons.

An Amber Deane layup in the opening minute of the second half got the Flyers within one point, but sophomore Jasmine Matthews drained a three-point try. UD went 3-of-4 at the free-throw line over the next several minutes to get within 31-30, before the Falcons took over.

Steffen scored the game's next five points, knocking down a three-point try from the top of the arc for career points 996, 997 and 998, then driving down the lane for a layup with 15:49 remaining. Those two points put her at an even one thousand for her career, and also gave the Falcons a six-point lead, the largest of the game at that point.

Several possessions later, Wilson cut the BG lead in half with a three-pointer, but Halfhill found Matthews for a trailing three at the 12:29 mark, beginning that 12-0 run. Another Halfhill assist led to a short jumper by senior Allison Papenfuss, and the junior then scored herself, hitting a triple try from the left corner after an offensive rebound by Rogers. BG had a double-digit lead for the first time, 44-33.

Halfhill stole the ball from Sant and fired a long pass ahead to Steffen for a layup, and Halfhill's runner gave the hosts a 48-33 lead with 8:23 remaining. Olivia Applewhite finally ended UD's scoring drought, which lasted 7:45, with a layup.

During that pointless stretch, the Flyers missed eight shots and committed five turnovers, including turnovers on three consecutive possessions.

After Applewhite's jumper, though, Halfhill made a layup, Rogers hit two free throws and Steffen drained another three-point try. BGSU's lead was 20 points, 55-35, with 5:04 remaining.

A MacKay layup cut BG's advantage to 18, but the Flyers would draw no closer. Jurstinger responded with two free throws to give the Brown and Orange a 57-37 lead with 3:02 on the clock. Beginning with those tosses, the game's final 13 points all came at the charity stripe, with the Falcons scoring 10 of those 13 points.

The Falcons shot 45.5% from the field in the second half en route to a 33.9% effort for the game. Dayton went just 4-for-25 (16.0%) from the floor in the final 20 minutes, and the Flyers shot a season-low 25.5% on the afternoon.

UD also struggled from three-point land, making just three long-distance shots in 24 attempts (12.5%). BGSU was 6-of-17 (35.3%) from the arc on the day, with Matthews and Steffen making two triples apiece.

BGSU was 21-of-24 from the free-throw line (87.5%), led by an 11-for-13 effort from Rogers. Halfhill made 6-of-7 free-throw tries, with both Justinger and Steffen going a perfect 2-of-2 at the stripe.

Steffen became the 25th player in BGSU women's basketball history to reach the 1,000-point mark. She finished the day with 1,007 points, and now ranks 24th on the school career scoring list.

Rogers had her second double-double in as many games, her second of the season and the 14th of her BGSU career. Five of her 10 rebounds came at the offensive end.

Each of Dayton's five starters averaged at least 9.8 points per game entering the BGSU contest. But, as mentioned, no UD player had more than eight points on Sunday.

The Falcons' last win vs. a ranked opponent came two years ago at venerable Anderson Arena. BGSU downed Vanderbilt, 69-58, at "The House That Roars" on Dec. 1, 2010.

BG's only previous game vs. a nationally-ranked team at the Stroh Center came in the first-ever regular-season women's basketball contest in the building, as Purdue escaped with a 54-53 win last season (Nov. 17, 2011).

In addition to the 2010 Vanderbilt game and Sunday's Dayton contest, BGSU's only other home win over a ranked team came on Nov. 23, 1991. On that day, the Falcons downed 10th-ranked Purdue in Jaci Clark's head-coaching debut.

The 2012-13 Falcons will continue a season-long five-game homestand on Friday night (Jan. 4), hosting UCF in a 7:00 p.m. start at the Stroh Center.

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