Kate Achter scored a career-high 27 points and hit six free throws in one trip to the line to lift the Bowling Green women’s basketball team to a 73-62 victory over Marshall.
The win moved the Falcons to 11-3 in the Mid-American Conference and dropped the Herd to the same record.
The game that was touted as being a battle between MAC giants was just that as great efforts by both teams weren’t reflected in the final score.
The championship caliber game brought out the best in the Falcons as their coach asked just about everything from his players.
“In four years, I’m not sure I’ve challenged the team as much as I did tonight,” BG head coach Curt Miller said. “I was very demanding tonight.”
His team responded though, turning in a performance that was more about their hustle than making big plays.
The Falcons shot just 35.4 percent from the floor on the game, but used a 48 to 33 edge in rebounding to edge the Herd. A number even more impressive than that was the 22 offensive rebound BG pulled in.
“The single biggest category tonight was offensive rebounding,” Miller said. “For us not to fold and lose when we were outshot by our opponents is a credit to our offensive rebounding and not quitting.”
That determination worked for the Falcons in two ways. Not only did they get more opportunities to score, but they also gave Marshall fits.
“It’s a really tough thing to play 25 seconds of good defense, and then they get the rebound and we have to turn around and play another 25 seconds of defense,” Marshall head coach Royce Chadwick said.
Even with the hustle from the Falcons, the Herd matched that intensity and made the game close. The Falcons led by as much as 11 in the first half but only maintained a 32-27 lead going into the locker room.
The Herd wasted little time closing that gap more as they scored two baskets in the first 44 seconds of the second half to close the gap to one.
Marshall would finally gain a lead at the 16:37 mark when Marshall’s Sikeetha Shepard-Hall buried a three from the corner bringing the score to 35-34 Herd.
That would set the tone for the next 3:59 when the two teams exchanged leads six times. But just as the Herd started to get back into the game, the Falcons went on a 16-4 run to build a lead they would not relinquish.
“I thought BG played an excellent basketball game tonight,” Chadwick said. “They did everything they needed to do to disrupt us.”
Marshall also made some mistakes that hurt their chances at clinching the MAC East. The Herd had three technicals on the night — two from Shepard-Hall and one from Chadwick — that gave the Falcons a fair share of free throws.
The most important free shots came with 39 seconds left on the clock. After a foul was called on Marshall guard Kim Griffin, Achter was set to shoot two, but Shepard-Hall drew her second T of the game and Chadwick followed her up with another one.
Achter went on to hit six consecutive free throws to give BG their biggest lead of the night at 73-58 and bury any shot of a Marshall comeback.
For the Falcons, it was ignoring the antics of the Herd that played out big in the end. Their intimidation factor has won some games for them, but BG was up to the task of standing up to the MAC East bullies.
“They win a lot of games before the tip,” Miller said. “They intimidate teams but we talked to the team about not getting involved in that.”
Ali Mann turned in a big performance for BG, scoring 19 and pulling down a career best 16 boards while Liz Honegger had 17 points and 11 boards –11 of which came on the offensive glass. Their efforts helped put the Falcons in a good position heading into season’s end.
“With two games to go we are in first place and that’s where we want to be,” Miller said.
The next team standing between the Falcons and a MAC title is Toledo. The battle of I-75 is slated to start at 1 p.m. Saturday in Anderson Arena.
