Kendra Wecker had 25 points and teammate Laurie Koehn scored 22 as the Kansas State women’s basketball team scored a 70-60 victory over Bowling Green in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

The Falcons learned what playing against some of the most talented players in the nation is all about in the loss.

Wecker came into the game as the reigning Big 12 Player of the Year while Koehn left the game needing only four more three-pointers to become the top three-point shooter in the history of the NCAA.

Wecker displayed an arsenal of moves that even impressed BG forward Ali Mann, who is one of the top players in the Mid-American Conference.

“Playing an All-American like that, she showed me some moves,” Mann said. “I’ll have to go back to the gym and work on those.”

Even playing against All-American talent, the Falcons hung with the Wildcats throughout the game.

Despite a first half that saw them shoot just 31.4 percent from the field, the Falcons found themselves with a 33-32 halftime lead.

But Kansas State used their time in the locker room wisely during the break and came out with a fresh game plan in the second half.

After the first half saw them shoot just 33.3 percent from the field, they came out in the second half and hit 44.4 percent of their shots. On top of that, they picked up some slack on the glass, outrebounding Bowling Green by a margin of 28 to 16.

“I’m extremely pleased with the improvements we made in the second half,” Kansas State head coach Deb Patterson said. “Bowling Green played really aggressive and had that mentality all night.”

“In the second half, we became committed to executing and grinding it out.”

And that is just what the Wildcats did.

On top of dominating the glass inside, they racked up a season-high ten blocks as a team and caused some of the Falcons’ best scorers to have nights they’d rather forget.

Mann shot just 4-of-19 from the field, fellow forwards Liz Honegger and Carin Horne hit on just seven of their combined 30 shots and MAC tournament MVP Kate Achter was just 4-of-13 from the floor.

“That was a very physical game down low,” Mann said. “We missed a lot of shots due mostly to their physical play.”

On top of their problems with Kansas State’s front line, the Falcons didn’t capitalize on their free throw attempts.

This season, the Falcons have been deadly from the line, hitting 71.6 percent of their tries. But against the Wildcats it was a different story as they hit just 55 percent of their free throws and shot just 3-of-9 from the charity stripe in the second half.

“I was disappointed in the way we lost,” BG head coach Curt Miller said. “Because we are capable of making a lot of the shots we missed and we had a bad night at the free throw line.”

Even with the bad night from the line, the Falcons were right there with Kansas State, the No. 17 team in the nation. At the beginning of the season, they struggled against top notch opposition, losing 89-41 to Ohio State and 73-43 to New Mexico.

“At the beginning of the year we played Ohio State and they blew us out,” Honegger said. “Then we stuck with New Mexico till the half.”

“To come out and play like we did shows we’ve really come a long way.”