BGSU women’s basketball (1-4) suffered its fourth straight loss of the season in its first game on the weekend in the Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage, Alaska, falling to the UC Irvine Anteaters (3-2) 50-75 on Friday night.
The Falcons came out of the gates slowly and far behind their opponents, going without a field goal for nearly nine minutes to start the game and getting outscored 15-3 in the first quarter.
The Orange and Brown made just five percent of their field goals in the first quarter, shooting 1-17 and missing all ten of their shots from beyond the three-point line.
“We need to find a way to have a little better start in the first quarter, that’s kind of been our bugaboo all season long,” said BGSU assistant coach John Nicolais. “We had pretty clean looks early on, and they didn’t go in.”
The Anteaters had a much different game plan through the first quarter, opting to take more shots inside instead of behind the arc. Out of the 15 shot attempts by UCI in the first quarter, only three of them were from deep.
The second quarter would prove to be a much more even affair between the Falcons and Anteaters, but the lopsided performance seen in the first quarter led to a 33-18 lead for UCI going into halftime.
A bright spot for the Falcons in the second quarter was their ability to get to the free-throw line, with eight of the 15 points scored by BG in the quarter coming from the free-throw line.
One player who started to build momentum for Bowling Green was junior guard Paige Kohler, who had five points in the quarter. Kohler would go on to lead the Falcons in points scored on the night with 18.
The Anteaters would begin to put this game out of reach for the Falcons in the third quarter, outscoring the Orange and Brown 27-15 and giving themselves a 60-33 lead going into the final frame of play.
The third quarter would see strong shooting performances from multiple different UCI players, most notably the performance of sophomore guard Lauryn Madsen, who had three huge three-point shots in the final minutes of the frame to extend the Anteaters’ lead to 27.
Madsen would finish the night with a team high of 15 points, making her one of the five different UCI players in double figures.
The Falcons would have their strongest quarter of the night in the final frame, outscoring UCI 17-15, but the established lead would prove too much to overcome with the final score of 75-50 in favor of the Anteaters.
Another strong performance for the Anteaters came from senior guard Jada Wynn, who finished with a double-double, 14 points, 13 rebounds, six assists, and two steals.
Sophomore guard Johnea Donahue was the only other Falcon to score in double figures on the night, with 10 points, six rebounds, five assists, and three steals.
Bowling Green will look to bounce back Saturday, Nov 22, as they face off against Alaska Anchorage, with tip-off beginning at 9:15 p.m. Falcon Media Sports Network’s Lucas Kleimeyer will have the call on Falcon Radio, with full coverage of the game afterwards on bgfalconmedia.com.
