Bowling Green State University Athletics
Monday, March 9
Kalamazoo, MI
5:30 PM
Bowling Green State University
9-21
42
at
65
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Western Michigan (First Round)
19-11
1
2
F
Bowling Green
17
25
42
Western Michigan
28
37
65
Freshman Sarah Baer scored 8 points at WMU on Monday night
Photo by: Larry Clapper
Falcons' Season Comes to an End at Western
March 09, 2015 | Women's Basketball
Broncos pull away for 65-42 win over BGSU in MAC Tournament's first round
Host Western Michigan University went on a late first-half run, then took advantage of a dry spell by the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team early in the second period. The Broncos pulled away for a 65-42 win in Mid-American Conference Tournament first-round action Monday night (March 9) at University Arena.
LINKS
FINAL STATISTICS: HTML | PDF
POSTGAME AUDIO: Coach Roos
With the win, the Broncos, the fifth seed for the tournament, advance to Wednesday's (March 11) second round at Quicken Loans Arena, where WMU will face Central Michigan. The Falcons, the number-12 seed for the tournament, see the season come to an end.
The Broncos (19-11) shot 59.1 percent from the field en route to a 51.0% success rate for the game. Marquisha Harris led WMU with 13 points off the bench, while Alex Morton scored 10. A total of 12 different WMU players scored at least two points in the win.
For the Falcons (9-21), senior Deborah Hoekstra led the way with 11 points in the final game of her collegiate career. Freshmen Haley Puk and Sarah Baer had nine and eight points, respectively, off the bench.
The Falcons never led, but BG was within five points, 20-15, after freshman Rachel Myers and Hoekstra each came up with an offensive rebound and layup on back-to-back possessions. But, the Broncos ended the half on an 8-2 run to take a 28-17 lead into the intermission.
The teams traded buckets for the first two minutes of the second period, but the Falcons then went nearly 12 minutes without hitting a field goal. The Broncos went on a 22-1 run to break a seven-point game wide open.
Myers scored six points on Monday, while junior Miriam Justinger and redshirt freshman Kennedy Kirkpatrick had four apiece.
Each of Western's five starters scored between five and 10 points. In addition to the 13 points from Harris, the Broncos got seven points off the bench from Teagan Reeves.
Both teams started slowly. Hoekstra stole the ball from WMU's All-MAC post player, Miracle Woods, on the game's first possession, and Justinger took the ball from Morton on the next Bronco possession. Woods missed a jumper on Western's third trip down the floor, but meanwhile, the Falcons went scoreless during that game-opening stretch as well.
Finally, with nearly two minutes gone, Morton's three-pointer opened the scoring. And, 90 seconds later, Morton found Jessica Jessing at the top of the arc for another triple and a 6-0 Bronco lead. The Falcons got on the board as Hoekstra was fouled on a drive and hit two free throws out of the game's first media timeout.
Myers came up with steals on the next two Western possessions, but the Falcons could not capitalize, and layups by Woods and Morton gave the hosts a 10-2 lead and prompted a BG timeout.
Out of that timeout, Baer rebounded her own missed shot and swished a jumper in the paint for BG's first field goal of the evening with exactly seven minutes gone.
After the Falcons got a defensive stop, Kirkpatrick was fouled and hit a pair of shots at the stripe, cutting Western's lead to 10-6. Harris scored inside, but Justinger hit a right-side floater at the 10:39 mark. But, Harris scored again, beginning a 6-0 run for the hosts that increased the lead to double digits.
Myers fed Puk for a three-pointer from the top of the arc, but Harris came right back with a layup for a 20-11 WMU lead.
After a BG three-point try was off the mark, Myers grabbed the rebound, sliced past a would-be defender and laid the ball up and in. Then, Hoekstra missed a three-point try, but followed her shot, rebounded the miss and hit a second-chance layup of her own. Western's lead was 20-15 with 3:36 left.
Jazmine Windham made a pair of free throws, but Myers returned the favor for the Falcons. But, the Broncos utilized their height advantage as Woods lobbed a pass inside to Jessing for a layup and a 24-17 lead.
Morton scored in the lane with just under a minute left in the period, and a steal and layup by LaTondra Brooks gave the hosts a 28-17 lead at the half.
The Falcons made just 5-of-24 shots (20.8%) in that opening half, while WMU was 12-for-27 (44.4%) from the floor.
After making just five first-half shots, the Falcons went 3-for-3 from the floor in the first 89 seconds of the second half. Hoekstra drove into the lane, faked a shot and flipped a pass to an open Justinger for a layup on the first possession of the period. Morton countered with a corner three, but Justinger whipped a pass to Hoekstra for a corner three of her own with less than a minute gone.
Hoekstra stole a WMU pass on the next possession, giving the ball back to the Falcons, and Myers hit a contested runner to cut the Broncos' lead to seven, at 31-24. But, after that Myers shot with 18:31 left, BG would not hit another field goal for a span of 11:49.
Western's 22-1 run began with a long three-pointer by Morton, and Woods hit a pair of layups over the next few minutes for a 38-24 Bronco lead. Puk drove and drew a foul on Woods with 15:17 left in the game, splitting a pair of free throws, but the home team then scored the next 17 points to seal the victory.
Windham scored the first five points during that run, including a long three-pointer after a nifty series of passes by the hosts. Reeves scored two-straight buckets, and three other Broncos scored before Baer got to the line and hit two charity tosses with 7:44 left in the game. But, back-to-back baskets by Harris, the second an alley-oop layup off of a Meredith Shipman pass in transition, gave the Broncos a game-high 30-point lead with just over seven minutes remaining.
Senior Erica Fullenkamp found Baer for a shot off glass with 6:23 to go, ending BG's field-goal drought, and after Aneisha Carlisle's prayer was answered as an unorthodox shot went through the hoop, Puk drained a three-point try from the left wing. Hoekstra made two free throws, but the Falcons still trailed by a 60-34 count.
In the last few minutes of the game, Justinger lobbed a pass inside to Baer, who muscled a layup up and in despite being triple-teamed, and Puk hit a layup.
Fullenkamp, a four-year standout on the BG volleyball team, picked up her fifth foul with 2:39 remaining and saw her two-sport Falcon career come to an end. The Minster, Ohio, native joined the women's basketball Falcons in January after no fewer than four players were ruled out for the season.
Another BG senior, Jasmine Matthews, saw her playing time severely limited due to injuries, playing only 35 total minutes in the 18 MAC regular-season games. Matthews did not suit up for Monday's contest at WMU.
The third Falcon senior, Hoekstra, was fouled with 1:52 on the clock and made a pair of free throws before BGSU head coach Jennifer Roos subbed her out of the game for the final time.
A pair of Kirkpatrick free throws with 19.3 seconds remaining closed the scoring.
Baer and Puk combined for 17 points off the bench for the second time in three days. Baer scored a career-high nine points against Akron on Saturday (March 7) before registering eight points at WMU, while Puk had eight points vs. UA and nine against the Broncos.
BGSU went 3-of-15 from three-point range in Kalamazoo, with Puk leading the way with a 2-for-3 performance from long distance.
Monday's game marked the first time this season that BG had not made as many as four triples in a game. Additionally, the WMU contest snapped a 40-game streak in which the Falcons had hit at least four three-pointers against MAC foes. The last time BG failed to make four treys against a conference opponent came two years and three days ago (March 6, 2013), when the Brown and Orange went 2-of-18 from long distance in a road win over Kent State.
Hoekstra, who earned honorable mention on the All-MAC Team earlier on Monday, finished her BG career with 672 points, 322 rebounds and 105 three-point field goals made. She averaged a team-leading 11.5 points and 6.8 rebounds this season, hitting a BG-high 51 three-pointers in 2014-15. Hoekstra shot better than 90% from the free-throw line as a senior (90.1%; 91-of-101), and currently leads the MAC in that category.
Western Michigan advances to face Central Michigan in a 12:00 p.m. start on Wednesday in Cleveland. The complete MAC Tournament schedule is below.
MAC TOURNAMENT RESULTS & SCHEDULE
First Round - Monday, March 9
at #5 Western Michigan 65, #12 Bowling Green 42
#9 Central Michigan 49, at #8 Northern Illinois 44
at #6 Eastern Michigan 70, #11 Kent State 52
at #7 Toledo 62, #10 Miami 47
Second Round - Wednesday, March 11
Western Michigan vs. Central Michigan, 12:00 p.m.
Eastern Michigan vs. Toledo, 30 minutes after first game
Third Round - Thursday, March 12
WMU/CMU winner vs. #4 Buffalo, 12:00 p.m.
EMU/UT winner vs. #3 Akron, 30 minutes after first game
Semifinals - Friday, March 13
WMU/CMU/UB winner vs. #1 Ohio, 12:00 p.m.
EMU/UT/UA winner vs. #2 Ball State, 30 minutes after first game
Championship - Saturday, March 14
Semifinal-round winners, 1:00 p.m.
First-round games at campus sites, all subsequent rounds at Quicken Loans Arena; Cleveland, Ohio
LINKS
FINAL STATISTICS: HTML | PDF
POSTGAME AUDIO: Coach Roos
With the win, the Broncos, the fifth seed for the tournament, advance to Wednesday's (March 11) second round at Quicken Loans Arena, where WMU will face Central Michigan. The Falcons, the number-12 seed for the tournament, see the season come to an end.
The Broncos (19-11) shot 59.1 percent from the field en route to a 51.0% success rate for the game. Marquisha Harris led WMU with 13 points off the bench, while Alex Morton scored 10. A total of 12 different WMU players scored at least two points in the win.
For the Falcons (9-21), senior Deborah Hoekstra led the way with 11 points in the final game of her collegiate career. Freshmen Haley Puk and Sarah Baer had nine and eight points, respectively, off the bench.
The Falcons never led, but BG was within five points, 20-15, after freshman Rachel Myers and Hoekstra each came up with an offensive rebound and layup on back-to-back possessions. But, the Broncos ended the half on an 8-2 run to take a 28-17 lead into the intermission.
The teams traded buckets for the first two minutes of the second period, but the Falcons then went nearly 12 minutes without hitting a field goal. The Broncos went on a 22-1 run to break a seven-point game wide open.
Myers scored six points on Monday, while junior Miriam Justinger and redshirt freshman Kennedy Kirkpatrick had four apiece.
Each of Western's five starters scored between five and 10 points. In addition to the 13 points from Harris, the Broncos got seven points off the bench from Teagan Reeves.
Both teams started slowly. Hoekstra stole the ball from WMU's All-MAC post player, Miracle Woods, on the game's first possession, and Justinger took the ball from Morton on the next Bronco possession. Woods missed a jumper on Western's third trip down the floor, but meanwhile, the Falcons went scoreless during that game-opening stretch as well.
Finally, with nearly two minutes gone, Morton's three-pointer opened the scoring. And, 90 seconds later, Morton found Jessica Jessing at the top of the arc for another triple and a 6-0 Bronco lead. The Falcons got on the board as Hoekstra was fouled on a drive and hit two free throws out of the game's first media timeout.
Myers came up with steals on the next two Western possessions, but the Falcons could not capitalize, and layups by Woods and Morton gave the hosts a 10-2 lead and prompted a BG timeout.
Out of that timeout, Baer rebounded her own missed shot and swished a jumper in the paint for BG's first field goal of the evening with exactly seven minutes gone.
After the Falcons got a defensive stop, Kirkpatrick was fouled and hit a pair of shots at the stripe, cutting Western's lead to 10-6. Harris scored inside, but Justinger hit a right-side floater at the 10:39 mark. But, Harris scored again, beginning a 6-0 run for the hosts that increased the lead to double digits.
Myers fed Puk for a three-pointer from the top of the arc, but Harris came right back with a layup for a 20-11 WMU lead.
After a BG three-point try was off the mark, Myers grabbed the rebound, sliced past a would-be defender and laid the ball up and in. Then, Hoekstra missed a three-point try, but followed her shot, rebounded the miss and hit a second-chance layup of her own. Western's lead was 20-15 with 3:36 left.
Jazmine Windham made a pair of free throws, but Myers returned the favor for the Falcons. But, the Broncos utilized their height advantage as Woods lobbed a pass inside to Jessing for a layup and a 24-17 lead.
Morton scored in the lane with just under a minute left in the period, and a steal and layup by LaTondra Brooks gave the hosts a 28-17 lead at the half.
The Falcons made just 5-of-24 shots (20.8%) in that opening half, while WMU was 12-for-27 (44.4%) from the floor.
After making just five first-half shots, the Falcons went 3-for-3 from the floor in the first 89 seconds of the second half. Hoekstra drove into the lane, faked a shot and flipped a pass to an open Justinger for a layup on the first possession of the period. Morton countered with a corner three, but Justinger whipped a pass to Hoekstra for a corner three of her own with less than a minute gone.
Hoekstra stole a WMU pass on the next possession, giving the ball back to the Falcons, and Myers hit a contested runner to cut the Broncos' lead to seven, at 31-24. But, after that Myers shot with 18:31 left, BG would not hit another field goal for a span of 11:49.
Western's 22-1 run began with a long three-pointer by Morton, and Woods hit a pair of layups over the next few minutes for a 38-24 Bronco lead. Puk drove and drew a foul on Woods with 15:17 left in the game, splitting a pair of free throws, but the home team then scored the next 17 points to seal the victory.
Windham scored the first five points during that run, including a long three-pointer after a nifty series of passes by the hosts. Reeves scored two-straight buckets, and three other Broncos scored before Baer got to the line and hit two charity tosses with 7:44 left in the game. But, back-to-back baskets by Harris, the second an alley-oop layup off of a Meredith Shipman pass in transition, gave the Broncos a game-high 30-point lead with just over seven minutes remaining.
Senior Erica Fullenkamp found Baer for a shot off glass with 6:23 to go, ending BG's field-goal drought, and after Aneisha Carlisle's prayer was answered as an unorthodox shot went through the hoop, Puk drained a three-point try from the left wing. Hoekstra made two free throws, but the Falcons still trailed by a 60-34 count.
In the last few minutes of the game, Justinger lobbed a pass inside to Baer, who muscled a layup up and in despite being triple-teamed, and Puk hit a layup.
Fullenkamp, a four-year standout on the BG volleyball team, picked up her fifth foul with 2:39 remaining and saw her two-sport Falcon career come to an end. The Minster, Ohio, native joined the women's basketball Falcons in January after no fewer than four players were ruled out for the season.
Another BG senior, Jasmine Matthews, saw her playing time severely limited due to injuries, playing only 35 total minutes in the 18 MAC regular-season games. Matthews did not suit up for Monday's contest at WMU.
The third Falcon senior, Hoekstra, was fouled with 1:52 on the clock and made a pair of free throws before BGSU head coach Jennifer Roos subbed her out of the game for the final time.
A pair of Kirkpatrick free throws with 19.3 seconds remaining closed the scoring.
Baer and Puk combined for 17 points off the bench for the second time in three days. Baer scored a career-high nine points against Akron on Saturday (March 7) before registering eight points at WMU, while Puk had eight points vs. UA and nine against the Broncos.
BGSU went 3-of-15 from three-point range in Kalamazoo, with Puk leading the way with a 2-for-3 performance from long distance.
Monday's game marked the first time this season that BG had not made as many as four triples in a game. Additionally, the WMU contest snapped a 40-game streak in which the Falcons had hit at least four three-pointers against MAC foes. The last time BG failed to make four treys against a conference opponent came two years and three days ago (March 6, 2013), when the Brown and Orange went 2-of-18 from long distance in a road win over Kent State.
Hoekstra, who earned honorable mention on the All-MAC Team earlier on Monday, finished her BG career with 672 points, 322 rebounds and 105 three-point field goals made. She averaged a team-leading 11.5 points and 6.8 rebounds this season, hitting a BG-high 51 three-pointers in 2014-15. Hoekstra shot better than 90% from the free-throw line as a senior (90.1%; 91-of-101), and currently leads the MAC in that category.
Western Michigan advances to face Central Michigan in a 12:00 p.m. start on Wednesday in Cleveland. The complete MAC Tournament schedule is below.
MAC TOURNAMENT RESULTS & SCHEDULE
First Round - Monday, March 9
at #5 Western Michigan 65, #12 Bowling Green 42
#9 Central Michigan 49, at #8 Northern Illinois 44
at #6 Eastern Michigan 70, #11 Kent State 52
at #7 Toledo 62, #10 Miami 47
Second Round - Wednesday, March 11
Western Michigan vs. Central Michigan, 12:00 p.m.
Eastern Michigan vs. Toledo, 30 minutes after first game
Third Round - Thursday, March 12
WMU/CMU winner vs. #4 Buffalo, 12:00 p.m.
EMU/UT winner vs. #3 Akron, 30 minutes after first game
Semifinals - Friday, March 13
WMU/CMU/UB winner vs. #1 Ohio, 12:00 p.m.
EMU/UT/UA winner vs. #2 Ball State, 30 minutes after first game
Championship - Saturday, March 14
Semifinal-round winners, 1:00 p.m.
First-round games at campus sites, all subsequent rounds at Quicken Loans Arena; Cleveland, Ohio
Team Stats
BGSU
WMU
FG%
.273
.510
3FG%
.200
.385
FT%
.750
.667
RB
27
34
TO
13
11
STL
7
7
Game Leaders
Scoring
Pts
11
FGM
2
3FGM
1
FTM
6
Pts
8
FGM
3
3FGM
0
FTM
2
Pts
6
FGM
2
3FGM
0
FTM
2
Players Mentioned
C
/ Women's Basketball
F
/ Women's BasketballG
/ Women's Basketball
G/F
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's BasketballG
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