It was nothing short of a show in the Stroh.
In the women’s basketball team’s last regular season game at home, BG clinched the Mid-American East Division title with a 64-55 win against Miami.
With the win against Miami, BG maintained a 14-1 record in the inaugural year of the Stroh Center. It hasn’t lost a game since its first home game against nationally-ranked Purdue, where it only lost by one.
Senior Jessica Slagle said she remembers saying, after the Purdue game, that their team hadn’t found its identity yet.
“It feels so good to know that our hard work paid off, that one of our huge goals towards the end of the season,” Slagle said.
Saturday was also senior day, where both Maribeth Giese and Slagle were honored.
“I was pumped up just to play Miami, they are the other contender in the East,” Slagle said. “They’re a top four seed in the league.”
The 2,407 people in the Stroh Center gave Slagle a standing ovation when head coach Curt Miller took her out of her last game with 30 seconds left on the clock.
Slagle led the team with 14 points, along with the other two captains Chrissy Steffen and Danielle Havel who had 14 points and 11 points, respectively.
BG’s big story was its foul shooting. It went 82 percent from the line, making 34 of 41 attempts, which was a season high for the Falcons.
The Falcons held Miami’s star player, Courtney Osborn, to just one point in the first half. She left the game with 21, but Miller was proud that they made her work for all her points.
BG needs to win its last regular season game on the road on Tuesday at Kent State to clinch a tie for the overall MAC regular season title. The Falcons would tie with Eastern Mich. and BG would clinch the number-one seed for the MAC Tournament.
If BG loses to the Golden Flashes, they could drop to as low as the third seed, if EMU and University of Toledo win Tuesday.
“I think if you would have told us in October, at the beginning of the year that we had one game left in the season to be the No. 1 team in the MAC we would have looked at you funny, and not believed you, but we would have taken it,” Miller said.
