Bowling Green women’s basketball (9-10, 3-5) suffered another late collapse in Saturday’s rivalry game against the Toledo Rockets (13-5, 5-3), falling 80-68 at Savage Arena in front of 6,527 fans – a women’s basketball record for the Battle of I-75.  

“We played really well in the first half. Offensively, we were really clicking,” head coach Fred Chmiel said postgame. “I think that the second half was mainly our defense. We gave up 53 points, and a lot of those were interior touches. Once those interior touches started happening, the perimeter game started going.” 

Toledo opened the game with a 6-2 run in the first two minutes and change before Erika Porter opened up the scoring for the orange and brown, going up and under for the easy lay. Bowling Green battled back, tying up the contest at eight-a-piece thanks to a Lexi Fleming three-pointer.

Fleming opened the game hitting each of her first five shots, scoring 12 in the first half alone. 

Bowling Green took their first lead with five minutes remaining in the first quarter, passing it back and forth with Toledo until the end of the frame. Amy Velasco knocked down two free throws to give BG a 19-17 lead heading into the second quarter of play.

Bowling Green opened quarter number two with a run of their own, outscoring Toledo 12-2 in the first minutes of the quarter, forcing Toledo first-year head coach Ginny Boggess to burn a timeout trailing 29-19.

Toledo came out of the timeout with a 6-1 run of their own, cutting Bowling Green’s lead back down to five points, where the score stayed into the halftime break, 32-27.

Bowling Green began with the basketball to start the third quarter, missing their first opportunity and allowing Toledo to convert on the other end to bring the score within three. After Porter lost her handle down low, Nan Garcia drilled a three-pointer on the other end to knot the game back up, 32-32.

Toledo took over from that point on, exploding for 25 points in the third quarter, thanks heavily in part to 13 combined points from Jessica Cook and Khera Goss. 

The pair scored as many points in the quarter as the entire Bowling Green team.

“It’s very frustrating right now, not being able to put four quarters together,” Fleming said. “You’ve seen our losses, that we have at least one quarter that we’re not showing up to play.” 

By the 4:35 mark of the third quarter, Toledo was on a 15-5 run and continued to apply pressure into the fourth and final quarter.

Entering the fourth, Toledo led 52-45. What had plagued Bowling Green for most of the season reared its ugly head in the second half, but especially in the final quarter. Seven of Bowling Green’s 15 turnovers occurred between the final two quarters, allowing Toledo to pull away with the contest.

“That’s all individual, take care of the ball,” Fleming continued. “It has to be within ourselves, we have to clean it up, get in the gym, know what we’re supposed to do. There’s a lot of learning points in this game.”

18 of Toledo’s 80 points came off of BG turnovers.

“They capitalize on turnovers, so it’s really tough,” Chmiel said. “They capitalized on pretty much everything in the second half, but we faltered.” 

After Toledo’s 15-5 run to open the half, Bowling Green was only ever able to pull within five points.

In the second half alone, Toledo hung 53 on the Falcons, aided by points scored off of those turnovers in breakaway settings.

“We turn the ball over, we don’t rebound, and we didn’t defend. Those three as a combination is 53 points in a half,” Chmiel continued. 

Fleming paced the game in scoring with 23 points, coming within a point of tying her career high of 24 set against Iowa in 2023. However, Goss and Kendall Carruthers stole the show for Toledo, with 21 points from Goss and Carruthers contributing 20 points of her own.

Velasco also chipped in 18 points for Bowling Green, with 14 of those points coming in the second half.

The Rockets finished the game making 31 of their 57 shot attempts, shooting 9-of-16 from three-point land (56%), and out-rebounded Bowling Green 31-23.

With the loss, Bowling Green falls to 9-10 overall on the season and 3-5 in Mid-American Conference play.

Next up, they welcome the Akron Zips to the Stroh Center on Jan. 29. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.