When you’re a senior and your team has a one game lead in the Mid-American Conference West Division with only a few games remaining, you have to play big, and that’s what Bowling Green’s two big senior leaders did last night against Ball State.
Senior forwards John Reimold and Josh Almanson made sure they were there to be those senior leaders, and they helped carry a Falcon team that only had two other point producers in the first half. Only eight Falcons would score points on the night as the two seniors combined for 48 of BG’s 70 points for the game.
“I thought they did a heck of a job,” head coach Dan Dakich said. “They hit shots at the end of shot clocks, and they really made up for us not getting any scoring out of our guards.”
Reimold finished with 28 points, which tied his season-high, and contributed four rebounds and two steals.
Almanson finished with 20, and contributed a team-high seven rebounds adding two blocks.
The two combined for 22 of BG’s 33 first half points. Reimold putting in 14 and Almanson contributing eight as only Perrick Robinson and Austin Montgomery were the other Falcons to score points in the first 20 minutes.
It was the first 20 minutes that saw Reimold and Almanson making big shots and scoring nine of the first 11 points for the Falcons as they grabbed an early 11-3 lead. Reimold capped that early run with a jumper that found the net from the right side.
They would both make two key 3-pointers in the half and ended the night combining for seven in total from beyond the arc.
However, it was late in the game as the Cardinals made a run that the two made key plays that gave the Falcons an edge in the end. Plays where the two, especially Reimold, showed their toughness and a lot of grit.
“There’s nobody tougher,” Dakich said of Reimold. “He digs out balls, he dives on things. When it gets in a crowd he rips out the ball and it’s no surprise that he made plays tonight.”
With BG leading 64-61 late in the game, and his team on the brink of letting the Cardinals come back from being from being down 11, Reimold made one of those plays. A great pass behind his back in the paint found his teammate John Floyd, whose lay-up put the Falcons up five with 2:53 remaining as it ended a big 15-4 run by the Cardinals that started with 10:12 left.
“He (Floyd) made a great cut on that play,” Reimold said. “I had the ball in the post and there wasn’t much time on the shot clock. I was going to have to force up a bad shot and then he just came out of nowhere and called for the ball and finished it.”
Finishing is what Reimold did as he would add the final four points on the night for the Falcons making 4-of-6 key free throws, including one with 4.2 seconds left to put the game out of reach.
His senior teammate (Almanson) would help in the effort-making big rebounds down the stretch and scoring 12 second-half points.
Reimold knew his team couldn’t make mental mistakes down the stretch in the game, as they found out what happened two weeks ago against Akron (71-69 loss). He took upon himself to make sure mental mistakes wouldn’t lead to let down at the end of night.
“Not making those mistakes at the end of the game is what wins,” Reimold said. “There was no way we were going to let that happen again tonight like in the Akron game and the game at Ohio.”
With that said, Reimold made sure what happened before didn’t happen again as he and his teammates made a big stop in the final seconds as the teams were diving around for the loose ball.
The win gave BG the lead in the MAC West.
