After coming off  the loss to Buffalo on Saturday, Bowling Green bounced back in a nail biting overtime victory against Ball State 81-76. 

At the start of the first quarter, Bowling Green jumped to a 7-0 run and never let the foot off the gas, as they led Ball State 22-8 at the end of the first.  

In the second quarter, the tides started to shift as Ball State starting finding success shooting and outscoring the Falcons 19-10. Narrowing Bowling Green’s lead to just five at halftime, Ball State made the score 32-27.  

Elissa Brett led with 18 points at the half for the orange and brown in her final home game of her career.  

In the third quarter, the Cardinals once again came together and were able to outscore the Falcons 19-12, giving Ball State the lead at 46-44 going into the fourth quarter. 

In the fourth, after plenty of back and fourth scoring on both sides of the ball, Ball State led Bowling Green 68-67 with four seconds left. However, BG got the chance to win it after Nyla Hampton was fouled on a drive to the basket.

Hampton missed the front end but swished the back end from the line to send the game into overtime. 

At the beginning of overtime, Ball State jumped to a 5-0 start within the first two minutes. However, Bowling Green responded with great defense by stealing the ball five times over the course of five minutes, causing Ball State to foul and allowing Bowling Green to take back the lead and win 81-76. 

Brett led the Falcons in scoring with 20 points, while Lexi Fleming had 19 points, including going 9/10 from the foul line and some clutch overtime steals.  

In front of a nationally televised audience, this was a crucial win to decide the top seeds in the MAC Tournament.

“It was a great basketball game, literally back and forth through that whole second half and overtime,” head coach Robyn Fralick said. “After Saturday, we just talked a lot about getting back to who we are. When we’re at our best, toughness is our thing. This was a great win. Ball State is a really good team. This was a big, big win. We had a lot of kids step up, and we made a lot of toughness plays.”

Bowling Green will travel up I-75 to face the MAC regular-season champion Toledo Rockets on Saturday, March 4. The battle for the one seed at Savage Arena is set to start at 2.p.m. 

For more information about the team, visit the athletics webpage.