BOWLING GREEN — Bowling Green State University’s women’s basketball team stormed out of the gates with a 13-0 run to start Saturday’s game against Eastern Michigan.
The opening five minutes of the second half were even more impressive for the Falcons.
BGSU used a 21-7 advantage in the first part of the third quarter to turn a nine-point lead into a rout, and a 27-10 third quarter edge overall helped the Falcons pick up a 79-63 Mid-American Conference win at the Stroh Center.
“The first five minutes for every quarter is really important to us, and I think the first quarter and the third quarter have been consistent for us. So we just knew we had to take care of business,” senior forward Allison Day said. “That defensive effort wasn’t the best in the second quarter, so we knew we had to be better.”
BGSU bounced back from Wednesday’s 81-73 loss at Ball State to improve to 12-2 overall (1-1 MAC). Saturday’s win was the 11th by double digits this season for the Falcons.
A few sloppy turnovers from BGSU in the second quarter helped Eastern Michigan trim a 15-point deficit to four with 4:16 left. Elissa Brett’s 3-pointer in the final minute gave the Falcons a 41-32 lead.
BGSU couldn’t miss to start the third.
Morgan Sharps drained two 3-pointers, Brett added one, and Nyla Hampton and Day both had six points as BGSU’s lead ballooned to 62-39 with 5:12 left. Sophie Dziekan’s post move with 3:42 left extended the Falcons’ lead to 64-39, and a tough bank shot in the post from Day gave BGSU a 68-42 lead after three quarters.
“I think just coming out, second quarters, we’ve been struggling with a little bit so I think just having that mindset coming in, winning the third quarter and taking it away from there [was big],” Brett said.
Day, a 6-foot-1 transfer from Loyola Chicago, scored a team-high 21 points on 10 of 12 shooting. She consistently made challenging shots in the paint against a tall Eastern Michigan squad.
“I knew I had to be aggressive from the start and once I was able to score a couple, then I was like ‘OK, I’ll just keep going.’” Day said with a laugh.
Brett chipped in 20 points and a team-high six rebounds. Hampton added 12 points and three assists, and the junior guard wreaked havoc defensively with five steals and two blocks.
The Falcons forced 30 turnovers and committed 15. BGSU had a 32-12 edge in points off turnovers.
“She has an amazing mix of, she’s able to pressure the ball and she just has great timing of when to get into a passing lane,” BGSU coach Robyn Fralick said of Hampton. “She had a number of steals and I love that we forced 30 turnovers, but she also had tons of deflections that don’t even show up in the box score. She does a good job setting the tone on our defense.”
Lachelle Austin led Eastern Michigan (9-4, 1-1 MAC) with 21 points, while Olivia Smith added 15 points and four assists. ZaNiya Nelson had 11 points and eight rebounds.
BGSU shot 47.5 percent (28 of 59) from the floor, which included just 17.6 percent (3 of 17) in the fourth quarter in which Eastern Michigan outscored the Falcons 21-11. Eastern Michigan shot 41.2 percent (21 of 51) and had a 37-27 rebounding advantage.
“Any win in the MAC feels like a really big win,” Fralick said. “I think coming off our road loss, I liked our focus, I liked our practices and I thought today we had some excellent stretches of basketball.
“Give Eastern Michigan credit, I felt like every time we made a run, they played tough. And then I thought the start of our third quarter, we really just kind of set the tone for the second half.”
BGSU will return to action at 7 p.m. Wednesday at home vs. Central Michigan.
First Published January 7, 2023, 8:44 p.m.
