The BG women’s basketball team conquered Western Michigan 72-50 Wednesday night at the Stroh Center in their pink and white specialty uniforms.

Wednesday’s game was a Play4Kay game in memory of former North Carolina State University head coach Kay Yow. In these matches, fans and players wear pink to support the awareness of breast cancer and the fight to find a cure.

Both the Falcons and the Broncos got off to an ice-cold start from the field in the first half, as the Falcons only went 11-of-27. The Broncos were not shooting any better at 12-of-32. Senior Jillian Halfhill led her team to a 6-of-11 attempt from three-point range, going 4-of-6 herself in the half to keep the Falcons in the game. Despite their success from behind the three, BG went into halftime with just a two point lead because of WMU’s success in the paint because of their offensive rebounding.

BG came out in the second half playing more efficiently on both ends of the court. The Falcons went on a 25-4 run in the second half alone to put Western Michigan at a 26-point deficit at one point in the game. The commanding lead proved to be too much for the Broncos to overcome, and the Falcons came out with the win.

Halfhill led all scorers with 22 points on the night. Redshirt senior Alexis Rogers finished with 16 and redshirt sophomore added 12 points to round out BG’s double digit scorers.

Halfhill said that something the team focused on at halftime was getting second chance points and limiting Western Michigan’s second chance opportunities.

“Our biggest key was to eliminate their second chance points,” Halfhill said. “When they got second chance points is when they scored in the paint…we had to eliminate those so that we could get our offense going.”

Head coach Jennifer Roos said that her team was lucky Halfhill had success from behind the arc in the first half. Had she not, they could have gone into halftime being down with how the Broncos were outplaying them in the paint, she said. She added that their second half success came mostly from their defensive effort, especially on the boards.

“Western Michigan has been our kryptonite, and they showed up and played extremely hard,” Roos said. “We finished the game out-rebounding them and also finished the game with more threes than they did, and that was a big turning point, as well.”

The Falcons will return to the Stroh Center on Sunday, Feb. 9 as they take on Miami at 2 p.m. in another conference match-up.