It’s already hard enough to play a college basketball game with only nine available players.

Try getting into serious foul trouble in a first half and get back to Fred Chmiel about that.

“The lack of availability is probably our fault,” said Chmiel. “The foul trouble- we needed to take care of that.”

All in all, the effort from Bowling Green women’s basketball was valiant, but the orange and brown came out on the short end of a 82-74 loss Saturday evening at the Stroh Center on alumni day to Kent State.

BG started off the contest going toe to toe with the Golden Flashes, ending the first quarter down just 18-17.

“I thought that when we came out in the first quarter, we had some nice rhythm offensively,” said Chmiel. “Until we got into foul trouble, and then we let that slip away a little bit.”

In that first quarter, forward Erika Porter picked up two quick fouls to push the limits of an already limited bench.

That’s where the frustration began.

In the entirety of the first half, a half in which BG trailed by just five at 35-30, forwards Taya Ellis and Sophie Dziekan each picked up three-plus fouls, with Dziekan getting four in the half.

Those fouls really led to a large discrepancy in the battle down low in the paint, as Kent State was able to snag a +13 advantage on the glass overall (40-27), as well as a +10 advantage in offensive rebounds (14-4).

“I think that sometimes when someone is guarding someone who is not the leading scorer, they think that they are just not gonna score,” said Morgan Sharps. “So, just owning your matchup and playing every possession super hard and not letting one bad possession lead to another bad possession.”

Despite all of that, the Falcons still made the game close to the very end, thanks in large part to the play of veterans Sharps and Amy Velasco.

Sharps, who was held in check the previous two contests and Miami and Buffalo respectively, exploded for her career-high in this one, ending the battle with a team-high 30 points. The sharpshooter buried six three-point field goals to lead the charge in doing so.

“I just felt like (in the previous two), that I was trying to force it too much,” said Sharps. “I’m finding my shot, and Coach Maggie (Lucas) helped me think about just letting it come to you.”

For Velasco, she ended with a solid 20 points and six rebounds, good for a team-high in that category.

Meanwhile for Kent State, they were led by Sharps’ former Newark High School teammate Katie Shumate, who paced the Golden Flashes with 26 points. Jenna Batsch and Janae Tyler each added 16 and 14 respectively.

BG (10-8 OVR, 4-4 MAC) now look to snap a three-game losing streak on Wednesday night, when they host the Northern Illinois Huskies at 7 p.m. Join Falcon Media Sports Network’s Brandon Loe on the call on 88.1 FM WBGU beginning at 6:45.