Konieczki Keys Furious Falcon Rally in 60-50 Win at UWM

Saturday, November 22

Milwaukee, WI

12:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

2-1

Milwaukee

1-2

Bowling Green

Milwaukee

Rachel Konieczki vs Bucknell - Nov 14 2014

Rachel Konieczki scored 10 of her 15 points in the game's final eight minutes as BG rallied for a road win

Photo by: Bianca Garza, BGSU Marketing and Communications

November 22, 2014 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Sophomore scores all of her career-high 15 points in the second half

By: MILWAUKEE, Wis. (BGSU Athletic Communications)

Sophomore Rachel Konieczki scored a career-high 15 points, all in the second half, as the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team rallied for a 60-50 road win over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Saturday afternoon (Nov. 22). The non-conference game was held at the Klotsche Center.

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POST-GAME AUDIO: Coach Roos
HIGHLIGHTS: Courtesy UWM Athletics

With the win, the Falcons improve to 2-1 on the young season, while dropping the Panthers to 1-2 on the year.

Both teams shot poorly from the floor in the first half, and the hosts led by a 16-13 score at the intermission. BG briefly took the lead early in the second half, but the Panthers quickly went back on top, and Macie Dorow's layup gave UWM a nine-point lead, the hosts' largest of the game, with a transition layup with 7:37 to go.

Following that layup, however, the Falcons would outscore the hosts by a 32-13 count the rest of the way.

The comeback began when Konieczki hit a long two-pointer out of a BG timeout. The Falcons got a stop on the next possession, forcing the Panthers into an off-balance shot at the shot-clock horn, and redshirt junior Erica Donovan's rebound led to junior Miriam Justinger's driving layup on the next possession.

Justinger's defense on UWM's Ashley Green resulted in the Panthers' leading scorer dribbling the ball off her own leg and out of bounds. On the next possession, Konieczki took a Justinger pass and drained a corner three-pointer, and the Falcons were within two points as the hosts used a timeout with 5:40 remaining.

Out of that timeout, however, Donovan stole the ball from Jaleesa Armstrong, headed downcourt and hit a layup while being fouled. The ensuing free throw gave the Falcons a 10-0 run and a one-point lead.

Milwaukee's Jenny Lindner hit a corner three to briefly give her team the lead once again, but Donovan knocked down a pair of free throws, then fed Konieczki for a left-wing triple with just over four minutes left. After a defensive stop, Donovan got back to the line and hit two more shots for a 45-40 advantage.

Jordyn Swan's three-point play cut the lead to two points, but senior Deborah Hoekstra was fouled and knocked down two shots from the stripe for a 47-43 lead with 3:04 remaining. After a missed shot by Lindner, Hoekstra grabbed the rebound. The senior's three-point try on the next possession went halfway down and came back out, but Donovan laid the ball back up and in for a six-point lead.

Then, Donovan took a charge from Green, giving the ball back to the Brown and Orange with 2:18 remaining. BG used all of the shot clock before turning the ball back over, and Green scored inside. A nice look by Donovan led to an easy Justinger layup with 1:17 to go, but Green hit a triple to cut BG's lead in half.

Leading, 51-48, the Falcons missed a shot on the next possession, but Justinger's rebound and layup made it a five-point game with 43.1 seconds left. The Panthers missed a shot, Hoekstra rebounded the ball and was fouled, and the senior hit two tosses for a 55-48 advantage. Armstrong canned a jumper with 27.1 seconds to go, but the home team would not score again, and BGSU then went 5-of-6 from the line to salt the game away.

Green, who entered the game averaging 33.0 points per game on the young season, had a game-high 23 points vs. the Falcons. She also had 10 rebounds, and was the only UWM player in double figures in either category.

Konieczki's 15-point output led the Falcons, and Donovan had 14 points and nine boards. Justinger, like Donovan, was not far away from a double-double, with 12 points and eight rebounds, and Justinger also had BG-best totals of three assists and four steals.

Sophomore Abby Siefker led the Falcons with 11 rebounds, as BGSU had a 46-41 advantage on the boards. Siefker had set a new career rebounding best by halftime.

The Falcons shot just 18.8 percent from the field in the first half, but connected on 13-of-31 second-half shots (41.9%) en route to a 30.2% success rate for the game. Milwaukee shot 42.9% in the second period and 33.3% on the afternoon.

Konieczki was 3-of-4 from three-point range in the win, while all of the other players in the game combined to go 6-of-43 from beyond the arc.

"I don't know if you want to call this a tale of two halves, a roller-coaster ride or whatever you want to call it," said BGSU head coach Jennifer Roos. "I thought we played really well defensively in the first half, and we were only down by three because of that defensive effort.

"We had a lot of good looks throughout the entire game, but it felt like there was a lid on the basket for many kids. But, Rachel Konieczki really led the way in our comeback."

To say the teams stuggled offensively in the early stages of the game would be an understatement. The Falcons and Panthers combined for 10 missed shots and six turnovers before Justinger earned the game's first points on a driving layup with 4:12 gone.

The Falcons held the hosts off the scoreboard for five-and-a-half minutes, but when Green hit a layup, drew a foul and made the ensuing free throw, the Panthers had a 3-2 lead. Donovan answered with a short pull-up jumper, however, and when Justinger fed freshman Rachel Myers for a three-pointer from the wing, the Falcons had a 7-3 lead.

Green, however, tied the game with back-to-back baskets just 19 seconds apart. She converted a second-chance layup, then stole the ball and hit another layup. Swan's bucket midway through the half gave Milwaukee a 9-7 lead, and the score remained the same for over three minutes.

Siefker pulled down one of her many first-half rebounds and put the ball off glass and in to tie the contest at 9-9. Siefker's career rebounding high entering the day was six, but she had nine rebounds by halftime on Saturday.

When Donovan got a putback of her own at the 4:47 mark, BG had a four-point lead, and Hoekstra's pull-up jumper made if a 13-9 game with just over three minutes left until the break. But, Green made a layup, Cree Hammond hit a three-pointer and Green sank a pair of free throws for a 16-13 UWM halftime advantage.

The hosts doubled that lead in the first minute of the second half, as Swan hit a trey. Justinger made a second-chance layup to cut the UWM lead to 19-15, but Donovan was called for her third foul with 18:08 to go, then was whistled for her fourth foul of the day, away from the ball, as Konieczki hit a driving layup at the 17:43 mark.

Siefker and senior Jasmine Matthews blocked back-to-back UWM shots on the next possession, but Green wound up making a layup for a 22-17 advantage. Matthews' offensive rebound led to a three-point play with just over 15 minutes remaining, and less then a minute later, Hoestra deflected a UWM pass to Konieczki, and Konieczki quickly threw the ball to Hoekstra, who was ahead of the pack for a layup that tied the score. Two Justinger charity tosses gave BG a 24-22 lead with 13:51 to go.

But, the hosts scored six-straight points, with the first four coming from Steph Kostowicz, and after Matthews split a pair of free throws, two Kostowicz tosses were followed by a Green three-pointer, giving Milwaukee a 33-25 lead. Konieczki connected from beyond the arc, after a pass from Justinger, but Kelsey Cunningham answered with a long two-pointer for the hosts, and a BG miss and Milwaukee defensive rebound led to Dorow's run-out layup and that 37-28 lead.

Konieczki scored 10 points in the game's final 7:06, with the first eight coming in a span of less than three minutes. The last of those eight points came on her trey with 4:08 remaining that broke a 40-all tie and gave BG the lead for good.

"We are a young team that is still learning how to win," said Roos. "And, we were playing a very good Milwaukee team. We did what we needed to do down the stretch, and that was make shots, get to the line and make free throws."

The Falcons now prepare for a trip to the left coast to participate in the DoubleTree LA Westside Thanksgiving Classic, hosted by Loyola Marymount University, next weekend. BGSU will play UC Irvine on Friday (Nov. 28), and the Falcons will face either UAB or the host school the following day.