Spirited Falcons Fall Just Short, 55-47

Wednesday, March 4

Bowling Green, OH

7:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

9-19, 2-15MAC

Buffalo

17-11, 10-7MAC

Buffalo

Bowling Green

Deborah Hoekstra had a double-double for the second consecutive game, with 12 points & 13 rebounds vs. Buffalo

Photo by: Larry Clapper

March 04, 2015 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Buffalo escapes the Stroh with a narrow victory Wednesday night

By: BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team battled the University at Buffalo possession for possession on Wednesday night (March 4), but a gritty, spirited effort fell just short. The Bulls escaped the Stroh Center with a narrow 55-47 win in Mid-American Conference action.

Junior Miriam Justinger led the Falcons (9-19, 2-15 MAC) with 13 points vs. the Bulls, while senior Deborah Hoekstra had her second double-double in as many games, with 12 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. The double-double was Hoekstra's sixth of the season, with all six coming in conference play.

For the Bulls (17-11, 10-7 MAC), Joanna Smith scored 17 points, while Christa Baccas added 10.

The Falcons outrebounded the taller Bulls by a 40-38 count on Wednesday night, and the teams each scored 18 points in the paint. In the teams' first meeting, UB had a 37-25 advantage on the boards and a whopping 40-4 advantage in points in the paint.

Kristen Sharkey had nine points for the visitors, while Mackenzie Loesing and Alexus Malone each scored eight. Malone led the Bulls with 12 rebounds.

The BG defense held Sharkey, Loesing and Malone to a combined 8-of-31 effort from the field.

The game featured six ties and six lead changes, and neither team ever led by more than eight points all night. UB took an early 6-0 lead, before the Falcons finally got on the board with nearly five minutes gone. Justinger took a Hoekstra pass and knocked down a three-point try from the right elbow, and the junior then hit a pull-up jumper after an offensive rebound by freshman Rachel Myers.

Baccas scored inside to give the Bulls an 8-5 lead at the game's first media timeout, but sophomore Rachel Konieczki threw the ball inside to freshman Sarah Baer, who countered with a nifty layup of her own. UB's Stephanie Reid hit a rainbow three-pointer, but Justinger answered with four-straight points to tie the game.

First, Justinger hit a jumper in the paint. Then, she drew a foul on Baccas and hit a pair of free throws at the 10:47 mark, knotting the game at 11-11. The Bulls retook the lead, but Loesing was called for two fouls in a 17-second span. Those fouls came during a possession in which BG came up with three offensive rebounds, and after yet another Buffalo foul, Hoekstra hit two shots from the charity stripe to make it a 13-13 game with 7:30 left in the half.

Justinger than came up with a steal, but her transition layup try would not drop. Reid threw the ball downcourt to Sharkey, who had stayed at the far end of the court, and her uncontested layup gave the visitors the lead.

Undaunted, Justinger took a pass from Konieczki and hit a silky-smooth jumper from just inside the arc, and a nice take off the dribble by redshirt freshman Kennedy Kirkpatrick resulted in a layup and a 17-15 BG lead. When freshman Haley Puk drilled a pull-up jumper in the lane, the Falcons had a 6-0 run and a four-point lead with 4:01 left in the half.

Smith hit a pair of free throws, but Kirkpatrick hit a shot with her toe on the three-point line, and the long two-pointer gave the Brown and Orange a 21-17 advantage. A putback by Sharkey cut that lead in half, but Myers came up with an offensive rebound of her own at the other end of the court, was fouled and hit one of her two free-throw tries with 56.5 seconds left in the half. A possession which saw Buffalo nearly throw the ball away, however, was salvaged by Smith, who hit a corner three, and the teams went to the half tied at 22-all.

Justinger had 11 points for the Falcons in that opening period, while Smith scored nine and Baccas six for the Bulls. No other player in the game had more than four first-half points.

BGSU pulled down 22 rebounds to UB's 13 in the first half, and the Falcons attempted only three three-pointers in that 20-minute span, making one.

Smith scored on a layup just 19 seconds into the second half, and nearly three minutes went by before either team would score again. Sharkey hit a pair of free throws at the 16:57 mark, but Justinger found Hoekstra for a three-pointer with the shot clock winding down, and UB's lead was one point.

BG's next possession saw Hoekstra fake a three-point try before driving down the lane for a layup and a 27-26 Falcon lead. That lead traded hands several times in the next few minutes, as Baccas canned a short jumper and Myers answered with a three-pointer for a 30-28 BG lead.

Baccas scored again, and Hoekstra came up with an offensive rebound in traffic and laid the ball back up and in. Sharkey, though, made a triple to give her team a 33-32 lead with 13:46 left. Out of a timeout, Smith poked the ball away from a Falcon from behind, got the ball back and was fouled on a layup attempt. She split her free-throw tries to give the Bulls a two-point lead, but Myers was fouled by Baccas at the other end, and the Falcon freshman made two tosses to tie the score with 13:05 to go.

And, the score remained 34-34 for nearly four full minutes. Finally, Smith broke the tie with a pair of free throws at the 9:12 mark, and she hit a short jumper for a four-point UB lead soon after.

Justinger's layup cut that UB lead in half, and Sharkey threw the ball inside to Malone for a layup and a 40-36 lead at the seven-minute mark. Two Hoekstra tosses made it a two-point game once again, but Loesing's pull-up jumper on the baseline gave the Bulls a 42-38 advantage with 5:26 to go.

That UB lead reached seven points after hitting three shots from the stripe, with Malone's two tosses giving the visitors a 45-38 lead at the 4:03 mark. Konieczki, however, took a pass from Hoekstra, drove the left baseline and fired a pass to Puk in the right corner. Puk, from just in front of the BGSU support staff on the bench, drilled a three-pointer to cut the Falcons' deficit to four points with 3:53 left.

BG forced Baccas to miss a jumper, and after a pair of offensive rebounds, including one by Justinger in traffic, a Myers layup cut the Bulls' lead to 45-43 with 3:05 remaining. Malone, however, scored on a putback, and after a BG miss, Loesing's banker gave UB a six-point advantage with 1:50 to go.

Konieczki was fouled and split a pair of shots, but Loesing's catch-and-shoot jumper gave UB a seven-point lead with 1:23 on the clock. Konieczki's layup with just over a minute left cut that lead to 51-46, and after Sharkey misfired on a three-point try, Hoekstra got to the line and made the second of two tosses with 32.1 seconds left.

BG quickly fouled on the inbounds pass, and Smith made one free throw, but a Falcon jumper at the other end was off the mark, and Malone rebounded the ball, was fouled and hit two shots from the line with 15.2 seconds remaining. One more UB free throw closed the scoring.

The Falcons went 4-of-16 from long range, tying a season low for three-pointers made, but BG held UB to just a 3-for-19 effort from the arc. No player in the game made more than one triple on the night.

Overall, the Falcons shot 31.4 percent from the floor, while UB shot 33.3% from the field.

The game was Kate Achter Bobblehead Night. The former Falcon standout, now an associate head coach on the women's basketball staff at St. Bonaventure, was unable to be at the Stroh Center because the Bonnies had a conference tournament first-round game on Wednesday. But, a recorded message from Achter was played during the game's initial media timeout, and members of her immediate family were in attendance at the Stroh.

The Falcons will close the regular season on Saturday (March 7), hosting Akron in a 2:00 p.m. start. It will be 'Senior Day' for the Brown and Orange, with four members of the program -- Hoekstra, Erica Fullenkamp, Jasmine Matthews and student manager Nick Fine -- recognized in ceremonies prior to the game.

Then, BGSU will hit the road for the first round of the MAC Tournament on Monday (March 9). BGSU's opponent will not be known until the conclusion of Saturday's games.