CLEVELAND — The newly crowned Mid-American Conference women’s basketball player of the year made her grand entrance on the league’s biggest stage.
For the third time in as many games, Jordyn Dawson was the Achilles’ heel for an unfavored Bowling Green State University team.
This third time, her effort helped third-seeded Akron bounce the sixth-seeded Falcons, 81-67, in Wednesday’s MAC tournament quarterfinals at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Dawson scored the first six points of the fourth quarter, which put Akron ahead 64-52 with 8:41 remaining. She eclipsed 20-plus points in each of Akron’s three meetings with Bowling Green this season.
On Wednesday, it was 22 points, seven rebounds, and six steals.
The game — and season’s series — boiled down to Dawson. She averaged 26.0 points in three games against the Falcons.
“Jordyn Dawson is just a spectacular player in our league,” Falcons coach Robyn Fralick said. “I thought we played hard. I thought we had some lapses in possessions, though, where we needed to play smarter.
“I’m excited about this group moving forward. We’ve got a young group, and we’ve gotten a lot of experience. Tonight was one of those good experiences, and this will be helpful and motivating for us moving forward.”
Wednesday’s game was the largest margin by which Akron beat Bowling Green this season. The Zips beat the Falcons by nine and two points in their regular-season meetings in January and February, respectively.
Akron outscored Bowling Green, 23-15, in the fourth quarter, but the game was much closer for the majority of it, contrary to what the final score would suggest.
After a consistently back-and-forth game through 25 minutes, Akron made 7 of 8 shots in the final 4:13 of a high-scoring third quarter, and had a 58-52 lead at the end of it. The lead changed four times, and the teams were tied at three different points of the quarter.
In total, the game saw six ties and 11 lead changes.
BGSU took a 39-37 lead on Elissa Brett’s 3-pointer, and Akron tied it at 39 on a Reagan Bass layup with 6:00 to play in the third. Bowling Green tied it into the under-five media timeout with a corner 3 from Kadie Hempfling.
The Zips held the Falcons to eight points in the second quarter in grabbing a 36-31 lead at halftime. The Falcons made 3 of 12 from the field, and the Zips outscored the Falcons 8-3 in the final five minutes.
Amy Velasco paced Bowling Green with 19 points. Hempfling and Brett each scored 15. Hempfling had four steals.
The Falcons shot 41.8 percent from the field to Akron’s 51.8 percent. Bowling Green made 8 of 19 3-pointers and 13 of 17 free throws.
Akron scored 17 points off 17 Bowling Green turnovers. The Zips scored 18 fast-break points to Bowling Green’s eight, and the Zips’ bench out-scored the Falcons’ bench 18-9.
"It’s like a knife going through your heart,” Hempfling said. “We had the game there for a little bit, and we just had a few lapses — defense and offense — and Akron, props to them. Congrats to them. They really just capitalized on all of our mistakes.
“Some games, we can get away with those mistakes and still come out with a win. But Akron’s such a great team. We can’t make mistakes like that, because they would just capitalize on them.”
Bowling Green could not have asked for a better start to its MAC tournament, going on a 16-9 scoring run through the first media timeout by way of Velasco’s seven points and four Zips turnovers. The Falcons made 6 of 10 from the field to start the game.
Akron, however, went on an 11-3 scoring run to grab a 20-19 lead with 1:57 remaining in the quarter. They made 4 of 5 shots and both 3-pointers in that span.
The Falcons stopped the run with buckets from Brett and Nyla Hampton to close the first 10 minutes with a 23-20 lead.
The Zips outscored the Falcons 27-15 to end the first half, following the first-quarter media timeout at the 4:57 mark.
“I think we just had to keep playing hard,” Velasco said. “We needed to get stops and not trade baskets. Just continue to play hard, and I think the ball just didn’t bounce our way this time.”
Akron got 16 points from Bass, 14 points from Layne Ferrell, and 11 points and eight rebounds from Lonasia Brewer. In the previous two games against the Falcons, no Zips secondary scorer behind Dawson had more than 12 points.
The Falcons went 15-14 overall and 10-10 within the MAC in the regular season. They did so without injured point guard Lexi Fleming and then the loss of transferring freshman forward Zoe Miller toward the end of the season.
The Falcons lose seniors Madisen Parker (four points on Wednesday) and reserve Molly Dever to graduation. Hempfling has one season of eligibility remaining.
Fleming is on track to be ready for the start of next season, and much of the rest of BGSU’s production from this season is due to return. At this time last year, the Falcons were the No. 1 seed in the same tournament, and reached the tournament finals.
Akron will oppose No. 2-seed Buffalo in Friday’s semifinal round. Buffalo defeated No. 7-seeded Western Michigan, 63-49, on Wednesday.
First Published March 10, 2022, 1:57 a.m.
