Much the same as the season story for the BG women’s basketball team to date, its game on Wednesday night featured many ups
and downs.
The ups outweighed the downs this time around as the Falcons [8-7] defeated Northern Illinois [5-8], 65-59 for their first Mid-American Conference win of the season.
The biggest test for the Falcons was the full court pressure they faced to end the game.
Holding a 20-point lead with under six minutes remaining in the game, Northern Illinois began to show a different look to BG. This sparked a 24-10 Huskies run to end the game, including an array of BG mistakes.
During the Falcons’ recent 5-game losing skid they were averaging 15 turnovers per game while reaching as many as 19 in their home game against Ball State on Jan. 3. However, BG was taking care of the ball for most of the game with just five turnovers in the first half.
The Falcons had four turnovers in the final six minutes and finished with 13 for the game.
“They [NIU] put the press on us, we just weren’t expecting that so we weren’t prepared for it,” said senior guard Deborah Hoekstra. “We hadn’t worked on our press-breakers the past couple days of practice, so that came as the biggest surprise, but at the end we figured it out.”
BG was able to figure it out, finishing the final minutes with 10 free throws to cling to its once 55-35 lead.
“We’ve been having trouble taking care of the ball, so even though we had some late turnovers against their pressure at the end of the game, with only 13 I thought that was a much-needed improvement from games previously,” said head coach Jennifer Roos. “We made a lot of tough foul shots in crunch time.”
After a slow start to the game, not scoring until a Miriam Justinger jumper nearly five minutes in, the Falcons fell behind 10-12 after an NIU shot near the 9-minute mark.
However, BG followed this with a 9-0 run, getting points from Justinger and a pair of freshmen: Haley Puk and Rachel Myers. The Falcons never gave up the 19-12 lead from this point on.
“We have freshmen who aren’t playing like freshmen anymore and can’t play like freshmen anymore,” Hoekstra said. “Everybody has had to step up into roles a little bit earlier than they would have had to.”
Puk and Myers had each been substitutes prior to starting recent games. Puk for the past six, Myers for the past two.
Redshirt-freshman, Kennedy Kirkpatrick and true freshman, Sarah Baer have also seen their minutes increase following the plethora of injuries. Justinger and sophomore, Rachel Konieczki are the only two players to start every game for the Falcons this season.
The Falcons scored five more points to close out the first half, 24-17, including a deep three at the right wing from senior
Jasmine Matthews.
“The crowd went crazy when Jasmine hit her deep three,” Roos said. “I really thought that energy carried over to the second half for a lot of people.”
Whether it was energy or not, the BG women played a much more efficient and effective second half.
The Falcons shot 32 percent from the field and 25 percent [3-12] from behind the arc in the first half. BG followed up its poor first half by shooting 60 percent from the field and 50 percent [5-10] from three.
They finished the game shooting 45.2 percent and 36.4 percent from three. The field goal percentage was the best since their last win on Dec. 21 against Bradley when they shot 45.8 percent.
BG opened the half with a jumper from Hoekstra on the first possession and never looked back.
At the 14:19 mark, Rachel Myers found an open Rachel Konieczki on the left wing for three. Myers then hit two threes of her own to give the Falcons back-to-back-to-back threes to extend their lead to 13.
“Rachel Myers hit a couple big threes there and we all just fed off that energy because the shots we were taking in the first half were good, they were just in-and-out,” Hoekstra said.
“We just needed one shot to fall and once that happened I really thought that the flood gates would open up for us, especially in the second half,” Roos said. “We kept telling them to shoot, giving them the green light and I think that paid off for us. We had a lot of confident shooters late in the second half that was able to extend that run to what it was.”
Four others hit three-point shots for the Falcons including Justinger, Puk, Hoekstra and Matthews.
“[NIU] has a defensive philosophy that is known nationally. They are holding teams in the fifties, high forties. If we could get to fifty first, I thought we could be successful,” Roos said.
BG did just that, eventually taking a 50-33 lead.
The Falcons’ lead dropped to as low as five points before securing the 6-point win.
The win was the first in the MAC for the Falcons [1-3] this season.
Now, the Falcons prepare for another short-handed game as they shift their focus to another conference opponent and go on the road to play Eastern Michigan on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
“Our focus is playing 40 minutes of intense, hard-working basketball, diving on the floor for loose balls, making all of the effort plays that we can because we are a short roster,” Hoekstra said.
