Ashland Uses Late Run to Down Falcons, 59-53

Saturday, November 7

Bowling Green, Ohio

4:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

Ashland

Bowling Green

Kennedy Kirkpatrick & the Falcons open the regular season Friday vs. Illinois State

Photo by: Bianca Garza, BGSU Marketing and Communications

November 07, 2015 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

BGSU opens the regular season with a pair of home games next weekend

By: BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

Visiting Ashland University used a late run to surge past the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team, as the Eagles downed the Falcons, 59-53, Saturday afternoon (Nov. 7). The exhibition game was held at the Stroh Center.

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POSTGAME AUDIO: Roos
GAME HIGHLIGHTS: WBGU-TV / ESPN3
PHOTO GALLERY: Bianca Garza, BGSU Marketing & Communications

In her first game in a BGSU uniform, redshirt senior Lauren Tibbs scored a team-high 16 points. Another fifth-year senior, Erica Donovan, joined her in double digits with 11 points on the afternoon.

The game featured nine ties and 12 lead changes. The lead changed hands for the final time with 2:49 left in the fourth quarter, when AU's Kelsey Peare hit a three-pointer to spark a late 9-0 run for the Eagles.

That triple was followed by a McKenzie Miller trey, the visitors' 11th successful three-point shot of the day. The Eagles then made three free throws to extend the lead to eight points, the largest by either team in the entire game, before a pair of late Falcon charity tosses closed the scoring.

Andi Daugherty led all players with 21 points for the Eagles, adding eight rebounds, a game-high four assists and two blocked shots. Teammate Laina Snyder had a double-double, with 13 points and 13 boards, and also had three helpers and a game-high four steals.

Miller added nine points and Peare eight for AU. The Falcons got eight points from redshirt sophomore Kennedy Kirkpatrick and six from freshman Carly Santoro off the bench. Junior Rachel Konieczki scored five points and dished out a BG-best three assists.

Freshman Sydney Lambert scored the Falcons' first four points, answering a pair of Daugherty layups with hoops of her own within the first two-plus minutes. After Daugherty hit a three-pointer, Tibbs took a Konieczki pass and knocked down a three-point try on the break, then banked home a left-side shot off of another Konieczki feed for a 9-7 lead.

Donovan received a pass from senior Miriam Justinger and drilled a left-elbow three, making it an 8-0 BG run and a 12-7 advantage with 3:26 left in the first quarter. After a Maggie Mitchell triple for the visitors, junior Abby Siefker lobbed the ball inside for Tibbs, who hit a layup to give her seven first-quarter points. Snyder's late layup cut BG's lead to 14-12 after the opening 10 minutes.

Daugherty opened the second-period scoring with a three-pointer, giving the visitors the lead, and Snyder's layup made it a 17-14 AU advantage. After a Donovan layup, Peare answered with a shot in the paint, and Daugherty then banked home a straightaway trey for a 22-16 lead. The Falcons, however, responded by holding AU scoreless for the final 5:20 of the quarter.

BG scored the final 10 points of the half. Kirkpatrick began that run with a driving layup, and on the Falcons' next possession, Kirkpatrick threw a pass inside to Tibbs, who redirected the ball with a fingertip pass to Justinger in the right corner. The senior's triple found nothing but net, and BG was within one.

The Falcons' last five points of the period all came at the free-throw line, as Konieczki split a pair of tries at the 3:26 mark. Her second free throw did not go, but the ball went out of bounds off of an Ashland player, and Kirkpatrick was fouled after the ensuing inbounds pass, sinking both charity shots for a 24-22 lead. Neither team scored for nearly three minutes, before Donovan hit two shots from the line with 26.6 seconds left in the period.

Snyder went across the lane and hit a bucket to begin the third period, then came up with a steal that eventually led to a Miller three-ball. The Eagles had the lead once again, 27-26. After the visitors went up by three, though, Konieczki knocked down a layup, and Tibbs hit a pair of free throws for a 30-29 BG lead at the 5:40 mark.

Back came the visitors, with five-straight points for a four-point lead. Santoro's three-point play erased all but one point of that lead, and after a Snyder jumper, Kirkpatrick hit a driving layup, and Santoro was fouled on another drive and hit one of two free throws. The freshman rebounded an AU miss, however, and knocked down a jumper on the next possession, putting the Brown and Orange ahead by a 38-36 score in the final minute of the period. A Sarah Baer steal led to Kirkpatrick's up-and-under layup in transition, before the Eagles got a late free throw to cut BG's lead to 40-37 after three.

Snyder kicked a pass out to Daugherty for a game-tying three-pointer with just over a minute gone in the final period, and Daugherty returned the favor, feeding Snyder for a cutting layup and a 42-40 Ashland lead. Kirkpatrick, however, drove and kicked to Tibbs for a layup, but AU answered with a quick triple by Peare.

After Donovan split a pair of free throws, Tibbs blocked a Snyder jumper at the defensive end, then came down and drilled a left-side three-pointer off of another Kirkpatrick pass. BGSU led by a point, 46-45, with 6:56 to go.

Moments later, though, a wide-open Miller hit a three-pointer to cap a 5-0 run and give Ashland a 50-47 lead. Konieczki lobbed the ball inside to Tibbs for a layup, and Donovan rebounded her own miss in traffic and laid the ball back up and in. With 3:10 to go, the Falcons led, 51-50.

Peare, however, answered with a triple, and the Falcons were called for an offensive foul with 2:25 on the clock. AU turned the ball right back over to BG on a three-second violation, but a Falcon turnover with 1:43 remaining gave the ball back to the Eagles, and Miller's trey made it a five-point game with 1:28 to go. The Falcons missed a long two-point try, and after an AU miss, another offensive foul gave the ball back to AU with 39 seconds left.

Snyder split a par of tosses at the 34.6-second mark, and two Daugherty free throws made it a 59-51 game before Konieczki got to the line and hit both of her shots with six seconds remaining.

The Falcons shot 39.1 percent from the field to the Eagles' 37.9%, and BGSU was 13-of-18 at the free-throw line, compared to 4-of-6 for Ashland. But, the visitors scored 33 points to BG's 12 from beyond the arc. AU went 11-of-28 from long distance, while the Falcons were 4-for-11.

Justinger led the Falcons with eight rebounds. AU had a 35-33 advantage in that category, but BG had 19 boards to Ashland's 15 in the second period.

The Falcons now prepare for the 2015-16 regular season, which begins next weekend. BGSU hosts Illinois State on Friday night (Nov. 13) in a 7:00 p.m. start, before meeting Bradley two days later (Nov. 15) at 2:00 p.m.