CLEVELAND — When Francine Miller is at her best, she carries the women’s basketball team.

Francine scored 23 points in BG’s 62-59 win over Cleveland State on Saturday at the CSU Convocation Center. She also led the team with nine rebounds.

After the win, Falcons coach Curt Miller talked about Francine’s importance to the Falcons.

“We ride the coattails of Francine a lot,” Coach Miller said. “It was so much fun to watch her play tonight. She’s such a warrior.”

Francine had been in a bit of a shooting slump before Saturday’s game. In the team’s win Wednesday over IPFW, Francine was held to just nine points. She came out of it by going 7-13 from the field against the Vikings. She was also 7-7 from the free throw line, and 2-5 from three-point range.

Francine said she understands her role as a leader on the court.

“I know I am still looked to as the go-to player, and person who is supposed to come up with big plays at big times,” Francine said. “I take whatever role I need to take.”

CSU coach Duffy Burns said his whole strategy for containing BG revolved around stopping Francine.

“When we scheduled this game, I was scared to death to play Francine,” Burns said. “She’s one of the best scorers in the MAC, and she’s going to get her points no matter what you do to her. You just have got to hope to not let her go crazy out there.” Burns said he felt he was able to contain Francine in the second half. She scored 17 points in the first half, but was held to just six after the break.

“If somebody other than Francine or Kim Griech was scoring, that was fine with me,” Burns said.

Griech scored 11 points in the game. Lindsay Austin had 12 points. Burns said he wasn’t concerned about Austin.

“Austin had a couple of jumpers in the lane,” Burns said. “As far as I was concerned, she could have as many of those as she wanted, as long as Francine or Griech wasn’t shooting the ball.”

A reason for Francine’s strong game was that she said she felt healthy. Coach Curt Miller has said that Francine will never be 100 percent because of her injuries. But Francine said she felt strong on Saturday, and was ready for a good game.

“I felt good for once,” Francine said. “Everything felt good, and I just wanted to come out and do what I could because I knew this was a big game for us. Its been a rough road for the past few weeks, and I just came out and did what I needed to do, and it just happened to be a good night for me.”