The Bowling Green women’s basketball team will go into winter break with a record of 5-2 after its win over Saint Francis on Saturday.
In its last game against Saint Francis, second leading scorer Deborah Hoekstra scored a career-high 22 points. Hoekstra was 8-11 from the floor including 4-6 from long range. She also added six boards and three assists.
“She shot extremely well at the arc and from the field overall,” head coach Jennifer Roos said. “She got going by her inside game first opposed to her outside game and if that is the way she scores then she can put up numbers like this on a more consistent basis.”
Saint Francis has the nation’s leading scorer in guard Alexa Hayward. Hayward went 7-23 on the night for 21 points.
“She has the ability to score 45 anytime out in my opinion,” Roos said. “But with how many threes they take we wanted to control the defensive boards. We won the battle on the glass by 11.”
Saint Francis made 10 out of its 27 three point attempts and had only eight offensive boards. The Falcons had 37 rebounds in the game, lead by seven each from Erica Donovan and Miriam Justinger.
“Credit to Miriam [Justinger], this is the nation’s third leading scorer that she’s guarded,” Hoekstra said. “Her length really bothers them. She’s an awesome defender and she helped us all defensively as a team.”
Despite both teams shooting well, 44 percent for Bowling Green and 43 percent for Saint Francis, the Falcons were able to hold a double-digit lead for most of the second half. Bowling Green had three players in double-digits with Hoekstra, Donovan, and Rachel Konieczki.
Seven games in, redshirt junior Erica Donovan is leading the team in points [14.6], rebounds [8.3], and field goal percentage [.455].
The team is shooting 37 percent from the field thus far and is taking an average of 21 free throw shots per game, a focal point in Roos’ offense. The team is also defeating opponents by an average of 12.8 points per game.
The team’s next game will be at Illinois State at 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 19.
Illinois has not been able to win a game yet this season with a record of 0-7. Its roster starts two seniors and three juniors, with junior Octavia Crump leading the team with 11.3 points a game.
