Falcons Top SMU, 76-70, in WNIT Opener

Thursday, March 21

Bowling Green, OH

7:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

SMU (WNIT First Round)

March 21, 2013 | Women's Basketball

BGSU hosts Duquesne in second-round action Saturday at 5 pm

By: BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

Jillian Halfhill v SMU - 2013 WNIT first round - Phalin

The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team shot over 50 percent from the field and withstood a spirited SMU comeback bid, posting a 76-70 win over the Mustangs on Thursday night (March 21). The game, a first-round contest in the Women's National Invitation Tournament, was held at the Stroh Center.

LINKS
FINAL STATISTICS: HTML   |   PDF
POSTGAME AUDIO:   Alexis Rogers   |   Jillian Halfhill   |   Jennifer Roos
POSTGAME VIDEO: Alexis Rogers   |   Jillian Halfhill   |   Jennifer Roos
BGSU-SMU HIGHLIGHTS: Courtesy WBGU-TV
BGSU-SMU PHOTO GALLERY: Courtesy Brad Phalin, BGSU Marketing & Communications

With the win, the Falcons improve to 23-10 on the season. BGSU advances to the second round, and the Falcons will host Duquesne University on Saturday (March 23) at 5:00 p.m.

The Mustangs, the Conference USA regular-season champions, see the season come to an end with a 21-10 record.

Junior Jillian Halfhill led all players with 23 points on the night, tying her career high. Halfhill scored 17 of those points in the second half, going 5-of-7 from the field and a perfect 7-for-7 from the free-throw line after halftime.

Redshirt junior Alexis Rogers scored 16 points for BGSU, while junior Jill Stein and freshman Miriam Justinger had 10 points apiece. Stein tied for game honors with seven rebounds, as the Falcons held a 42-28 advantage on the boards.

Fifth-year senior Danielle Havel also had seven rebounds, while three Falcons -- Halfhill, Justinger and senior Chrissy Steffen -- had six apiece.

For the Mustangs, Alisha Filmore scored 22 points, including 20 in the second half. Filmore made 7-of-9 shots in the second period, hitting five of her six three-point tries after halftime.

Keena Mays, the Conference USA Player of the Year, and Akil Simpson each scored 18 points for the visitors. Mays needed 22 shots to get those 18 points, going 6-of-22 from the floor.

The Falcons overcame a 26-turnover night, hitting at least 50 percent of their shots in each half. BG shot 50.9% from the field for the night, going 13-of-26 in the first half and 15-of-29 (51.7%) in the second.

SMU, after making only 6-of-34 shots (17.6%) in the opening 20 minutes, shot a blistering 64.5% in the second period. The Mustangs hit 20 of their 31 field-goal attempts after the intermission. For the game, SMU shot an even 40 percent.

The Falcons took an early 10-3 lead, but SMU rallied to go ahead by a 16-10 count. BGSU answered that 13-0 run, however, with a 19-0 run of their own, going ahead by a 29-16 score late in the first period. The hosts held a 33-20 lead at the half.

SMU scored the first seven points of the second period, and Filmore's three-pointer with 15:25 to go cut the BG lead to just two points, at 37-35. Halfhill responded with a three-point play, and the Falcons extended the lead back out to eight.

But, back came the visitors, as a layup by Destynee Hives-McCray with 5:31 left tied the score at 57-57. BG quickly responded, as Steffen's layup just 14 seconds later gave the hosts the lead for good. That Steffen bucket began a 10-1 run that included a pair of three-point plays by Rogers, and the closest SMU could get was six points on Filmore's final triple with eight seconds to go.

BGSU took an early 4-0 lead, as the Falcons forced SMU to turn the ball over on three-straight possessions to begin the game. The Mustangs then missed shots on each of the next two trips down the floor. In the meantime, BG got a putback by Rogers and a transition layup by Halfhill.

Mays got the visitors on the board with a three-pointer at the 17:38 mark. SMU went 10-of-23 from long distance, compared to 3-of-10 by the Falcons, on the night. The home team countered that triple, however, with three consecutive layups, including a pair of fast-break buckets. Justinger took a long pass from Halfhill for a run-out, and Rogers stole the ball from Korina Baker at midcourt and sailed in uncontested. When Justinger threw the ball inside to Halfhill for a bucket, the Falcons had a 10-3 lead.

But, the visitors responded in a big way. Simpson's jumper began a 13-0 run, as the Mustangs held the Falcons scoreless for a six-and-a-half-minute span. Mays scored five-straight points, and a Filmore jumper was followed by two free throws from Simpson. Ferrin Bell's layup with exactly nine minutes gone gave SMU a six-point lead, their largest of the game, at 16-10.

After that Bell bucket, however, the Falcons held SMU without a point for 8:04 and without a field goal for a span of 10:11. After scoring those 16 points in the first nine minutes, the Mustangs were held to just four points in the last 11 minutes of the half.

The Falcons proceeded to score 19 points in a row. Junior Katrina Salinas snapped BG's lengthy scoring drought with a three-pointer at the 10:01 mark, and Stein's layup was followed by a Havel free throw that tied the score out of the eight-minute media timeout.

Halfhill got to the line and hit a pair of shots, and freshman Bailey Cairnduff banked home a shot after a nifty shot-fake, giving the hosts a 20-16 lead. Rogers hit a layup, then stole the ball for her second uncontested layup of the game, and BG's lead was eight points.

Out of the final media break of the period, Steffen knocked down a long two-pointer, and Stein's triple try was on target with 3:12 left before halftime, giving BGSU a 29-16 lead.

Simpson broke SMU's scoreless slump with two charity tosses at the 2:56 mark, but Justinger answered with a pair of shots of her own from the stripe. Simpson's putback with 49 seconds on the clock was answered by a Justinger laup 30 seconds later, giving the Falcons that 33-20 halftime lead.

The Mustangs held the Falcons off the scoreboard for the first 3:28 of the second half, however, and Filmore's first triple of the period cut BG's lead to 33-27. Justinger's right-side drive and layup gave BG an eight-point lead, but Mays quickly answered with a drive and an 'and-one' layup, and her free throw put SMU within five points, 35-30.

After a Halfhill jumper, the Mustangs scored the next five points, including a pull-up three from Filmore in transition, but, Halfhill converted a three-point play around the media timeout, giving BG a 40-35 lead with 15:04 remaining.

Mays hit a back-door layup, but BG got four-straight points on layups by Stein and Steffen. Stein's bucket came after she rebounded a teammate's miss, and Steffen's hoop came off of a long Halfhill pass with the Falcons out and running. BG's lead was 44-37 with 14 minutes left.

Back battled the visitors, as another Filmore three cut her team's deficit to 46-42, but Rogers got a defensive rebound and dribbled all the way downcourt for a layup. Then, Halfhill scored inside for an eight-point BG margin with 10:47 left.

Simpson's jumper was followed by Baker's straightaway trey, however, and the lead was cut to three. Steffen doubled that advantage, taking a pass from Rogers and knocking down a three-ball from the left corner for a 53-47 lead. But, after Halfhill's free throws gave BG a 55-50 cushion, SMU came all the way back, tying the game on the Hives-McCray hoop with 5:31 to go.

On the next Falcon possession, a three-point try would not drop, but Justinger rebounded the ball and hit Steffen for the go-ahead layup with 5:17 on the clock. Stein stole the ball on the next possession, and after a BG miss, the junior got the offensive board and hit a layup for a 61-57 advantage.

After Filmore split a pair of free throws, back-to-back three-point plays by Rogers gave the Falcons a nine-point advantage. Her first 'and-one' bucket came with 3:16 remaining, and after an offensive foul on Simpson, Rogers boarded a teammate's miss and laid the ball back up and in with 2:55 to go. Her free throw gave BG a 67-58 lead with 2:55 left.

The teams traded buckets, and SMU then got to the line but missed both shots. BG turned the ball over, and Mays missed a three-point try, and Stein split a pair of shots from the line with 42 seconds remaining.

After a Filmore trey, Halfhill knocked down two shots from the stripe with 35.4 seconds remaining.  Then, a technical foul was called on the SMU bench, and Cairnduff hit both tosses for a 74-63 BG lead. The Mustangs scored seven points in the last half-minute, but Filmore's triple with eight seconds left could only get the visitors within six points, and the Falcons inbounded the ball and closed out the win.

Steffen scored nine points in addition to her six rebounds, while Cairnduff had four for the Falcons. Stein had a team-leading (and career-high) four steals to go along with her 10-point, seven-rebound night. Despite BG's turning the ball over 26 times, SMU had just a narrow 24-20 edge in points off turnovers, as the Falcons forced the Mustangs into 18 turnovers of their own.

BG went 17-of-22 (77.3%) from the free-throw line, led by a 9-of-10 effort from Halfhill, while SMU was 8-of-11 from the stripe. The Falcons got 17 points from the bench to just four from the SMU subs.

Tickets for the BGSU-Duquesne game can be purchased at the BGSU Athletics Ticket Office in the Stroh Center during business hours on Friday, or on Saturday prior to tipoff.