Bowling Green women’s basketball coach Curt Miller said he knows there will be games like Wednesday’s 75-51 loss to Western Michigan.

“As you build a program, you know you’re not going to win them all,” Miller said. “We’re certainly not as talented as some of these teams, especially on their home floor.”

Western Michigan, who is in first place in the Mid-American Conference West Division with a 5-0 conference record, dominated the game by forcing BG into 25 turnovers. Miller said that the Broncos’ aggressive defense was a major factor in the loss, and that the turnovers were the key statistic.

“Our turnovers killed us,” Miller said. “We felt like we prepared correctly, and were really disappointed that we couldn’t execute better against their zone.”

Miller said the turnovers took away the team’s ability to get in the game. The team shot 9-20 from behind the three point line, but Miller said they did not get enough offensive opportunities because of turnovers.

“When you limit your possessions against a talented team, you hurt yourself,” Miller said. “We shot the ball okay when we got shots off, we just didn’t get enough shots off.”

Miller said he was also disappointed in the BG offense, which shot 18-49 from the field. The Falcon starters were held to 15 total points.

“We did not execute at all offensively,” Miller said. Still, Miller said he was able to take some positives from the game. He was impressed with the play of the BG bench. Marisa Smith led the team with 14 points, and Sakima Smith was second on the team with 10.

“We got a lot of good contributions from our bench from multiple people,” Miller said. “Marisa Smith had a great night, Britt Anderson sparked us early, and Sakima Smith scored down the stretch and didn’t back down from their big post players.”

The Broncos were led on offense by guard Casey Rost, who scored 23 points. Miller said that BG did a fairly good job of containing Rost, who is the second leading scorer in the conference.

“Our philosophy is always to have role players beat you, and to try to contain their best players,” Miller said. “Our focus was on her, and we held her in check for the majority of the game before she got free late.”

The loss dropped the Falcons to 2-4 in the MAC. The Falcons’ next game is on Saturday against Northern Illinois at Anderson Arena. The Huskies are 4-3 in the conference.

Miller said one of BG’s goals in the game will be to stop Huskie forward Jennifer Youngblood, who is averaging 14.4 points and 8.3 rebounds a game.

“You have got to go in trying to contain Jennifer Youngblood,” Miller said. “She’s more physically dominating than any player that we have down low, so we will have to guard her with multiple people.”

Miller said it’s also important for students to come out to Saturday’s 1 p.m. game, and that the support could really help the Falcons.

“I want to encourage the student body to come out to the game Saturday,” Miller said. “We have played well at home…and I’d like to encourage the fans to come out and continue to support the program.”