CLEVELAND — For the second time this season, Buffalo flipped a switch in the fourth quarter that Bowling Green State University couldn’t figure out how to turn off.
On Wednesday night, that switch was Chellia Watson.
The Mid-American Conference’s leading scorer tallied 13 of her game-high 27 points in the final frame, including the game-winning basket with 10 seconds left, as Buffalo used a 28-14 advantage in the final 10 minutes to stun BGSU 65-63 in a MAC tournament quarterfinal at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.
“Watson got loose on us. Hit those couple 3s and then they started getting in the paint on us right at the rim,” BGSU coach Fred Chmiel said. “We just gave them too much ground.
“Did a pretty good job through three quarters of packing the paint and not letting them on the interior, and then that fourth quarter, we just kind of opened up the gate a little bit and then we weren’t finishing plays. It catches up to you.”
The fourth quarter was eerily similar to when the two teams met on Jan. 8 in Bowling Green. Buffalo used a 25-10 fourth quarter edge to win 70-60.
Overall, the Bulls improved to 22-4 in the last 26 matchups with the Falcons.
“It’s always a good matchup,” Watson said. “They’ve got great players, we’ve got great players. They’ve got a good coach, we’ve got a great coach. They game plan well, we game plan well.
“We just came out on top. It’s always a great game against them, so we enjoy it. But we always want to win.”
Buffalo, the No. 3 seed in the tournament, advanced to face No. 2 Toledo in Friday’s semifinals. Sixth-seeded BGSU, arguably the hottest team entering the tournament with wins in nine of its last 11 regular season games, fell to 18-13.
“We have a lot of respect for Bowling Green and that team and those seniors,” Buffalo coach Becky Burke said. “They were playing really, really, really well coming in.
“We probably got the matchup with the team that was playing the best coming into this MAC tournament, and we knew that we had to answer the challenge, and I believe that we did that tonight.”
BGSU used a 16-9 advantage in the second quarter to take a 26-22 halftime lead after a defensive struggle in which neither team budged. The Falcons opened it up out of the break with a 23-15 third quarter edge to build a 12-point lead.
Buffalo started out strong in the final frame and never let up.
Watson’s 3-pointers on back-to-back Buffalo possessions cut BGSU’s lead to 56-51, then her wild 3-point play trimmed the Bulls’ deficit to three midway through the frame. Kirsten Lewis-Williams’ steal for a layup gave the Bulls a 63-61 lead with 1:21 left, its first early in the second quarter.
Amy Velasco hit two free throws to tie the game at 63-63 with 49.2 seconds left. A sensational steal from Buffalo’s 5-foot-6 senior guard Lani Cornfield with around 20 seconds left under the BGSU basket where Johnea Donahue was going up for a wide-open shot attempt was critical.
“She’s one of the most special athletes I’ve ever coached,” Burke said. “Her ability to cover ground and fly around the way that she does, there’s a reason she was all-defensive team.”
Out of a Buffalo timeout, Watson got the ball and drove right to the basket for a score to put the Bulls ahead by two. BGSU had a turnover on an inbounds play with two seconds left, and the Bulls held on from there.
“It’s a game of runs, but we have to be able to stop that bleeding,” BGSU sophomore guard Paige Kohler said. “They punched the paint a little bit too much, and we’ve got to make sure we collapse.”
Watson finished 11 of 22 shooting from the floor, including 4 of 6 from 3-point range. Lexi Fleming, who was tasked with defending Watson, was solid by forcing her to take tough shots in the first half, but the Bulls’ 5-8 senior came up clutch late.
“She’s a great player,” Fleming said. “She is fast in transition, three-level scorer, so you don’t know whether she’s going to pull up for 3, pull up, or take it all the way. She definitely challenged me.”
Erika Porter led BGSU with 19 points and six rebounds. Fleming added 16 points and five rebounds; Kohler chipped in 14 with six assists and four rebounds; and Velasco had 10 points.
Lewis-Williams had a double-double of 15 points and 11 rebounds, and she added four steals, three blocks, and three assists. Cornfield had 14 points.
BGSU shot just 38.7 percent (24 of 62) from the floor compared to Buffalo’s 49.1 percent (26 of 53). The Bulls were 10 of 16 from the floor in the fourth quarter, including 2 of 3 from 3-point range, and 6 of 9 from the free-throw line.
First Published March 13, 2025, 12:32 a.m.
