The Bowling Green State University women’s basketball team’s season came to an end Monday, March 14 as the 9th seeded Falcons fell to the 8th seeded and eventual conference champion Bulls of the University of Buffalo in the opening round of the Mid-American Conference tournament, 60-44.
“The Bulls definitely set the tone in that first quarter with physical play and the ability to make shots,” head coach Jennifer Roos said. “They shot out of a cannon in that first ten minutes, and even though we had good looks, they didn’t fall, and the tone was set already.”
UB jumped out to an early lead, drilling four consecutive three-point shots to start the game. The Bulls surged to a 20-8 lead over the first eight minutes of the game and continued to hold the lead despite shooting 31.5 percent from the field and 11.7 percent from three-point range the rest of the contest. The Falcons, however, also struggled shooting the ball, their totals being 25 percent from the field and 25 percent from three. In addition to this, BG was outrebounded 48-32.
The loss came just two days after the Falcons fell to Akron in their final regular season match. The defeat capped off a three-game losing streak to end the regular season for BG seniors Lauren Tibbs and Miriam Justinger in their final career games, with Tibbs scoring 12 points and grabbing 9 rebounds while Justinger scored 9 points and dished out 4 assists.
“Tonight was an emotional night,” Roos said. “Being the last game of the season and saying goodbye to Miriam and Lauren. We’re going to take a lot of things out of this, and hopefully use it in the spring and the beginning of next season to fuel us.”
Justinger, who spent all four years at BG, ended her career tied for 25th on the school’s all-time career scoring list with 1,027 points. Tibbs, an All-MAC third team selection, led the team in scoring (12.5 ppg), rebounding (7.0 rpg) and field-goal percentage (.554) in her lone season with the Falcons as a graduate transfer from Marquette.
“Two of the best decisions I’ve ever been involved with were recruiting those two kids,” Roos said of her two seniors.
It was an up and down season for the Falcons, who posted a 10-18 overall record and a 6-12 record in the MAC. While they were 6-7 at home and 1-1 on neutral courts, BG had a 3-10 record on the road this season as it struggled to find its rhythm away from the Stroh Center.
A positive aspect of this season’s end, though, is that the Falcons will return 10 of the 12 players from this year’s roster. Among the returnees will be freshman guard Sydney Lambert and sophomore guard Rachel Myers, who started every game for the Falcons, and junior Ashley Tunstall, who was out with a knee injury during the final stretch of the season.
With three of the members of this season’s starting lineup and experienced bench players returning next year, the Falcons should prove to be a competitive team next year in the MAC.
