Falcons Race Past Akron, 81-49; Advance to MAC Tourney Title Game

Friday, March 12

Cleveland, Ohio

2:30 PM

Bowling Green State University

Akron (Semifinals)

Brad Phalin photo - BGSU vs. Akron - March 12, 2010

Junior Lauren Prochaska had a game-high 17 points vs. Akron (photos by Brad Phalin)

Falcons Race Past Akron, 81-49; Advance to MAC Tourney Title Game

March 12, 2010 | Women's Basketball

BGSU shoots 50 percent for second-straight game

By: CLEVELAND, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team shot 50 percent for the second consecutive game, with four players scoring in double digits en route to an 81-49 win over the University of Akron Friday afternoon (March 12). The Mid-American Conference Tournament semifinal game was held at Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland.

STATS: Final Stats - HTML | Boxscore - PDF
POSTGAME AUDIO: Curt Miller, Tara Breske & Tamika Nurse
PHOTO GALLERY: Photos by Brad Phalin, BGSU Photo Services
NOTES: BGSU's Notes for Saturday's Toledo Game

With the win, the Falcons improve to 26-6 on the season, and BGSU advances to Saturday's (March 13) championship game to take on arch-rival Toledo. UT was a 51-49 winner over Kent State in Friday's first semifinal. The Zips bow out of the MAC Tournament with an overall record of 18-13.

Junior Lauren Prochaska scored a game-high 17 points, while senior co-captain Tara Breske had 13. Junior Tracy Pontius added 12 points, with freshman Chrissy Steffen scoring a career-high 10 points off the bench.

Senior Tamika Nurse had nine points and a game-high eight assists, tying her career high in the latter category, while junior Jen Uhl scored eight points in the win.

Rachel Tecca was UA's lone double-digit scorer, with 12 points in the game. Kyle Baumgartner and Ayla Guzzardo added nine points apiece.

The Falcons, after making 13-of-20 three-point field-goal tries in Wednesday's (March 10) quarterfinal-round win over Miami, went 9-of-17 from beyond the arc on Friday. BGSU hit triples on each of the first two possessions, taking the lead for good.

Uhl got things started, taking a pass from Nurse and hitting a trey just eight seconds into the game. Jolene Tamboue answered with a layup for the Zips, but Nurse found herself open and let a shot fly from behind the three-point line, giving the Brown and Orange a 6-2 lead with less than one minute elapsed.

Tamboue hit a pair of free throws, but Nurse responded with a jumper after a Uhl offensive rebound. Uhl was whistled for her second foul of the game at the 16:37 mark, but Prochaska blocked an Akron shot attempt, the Falcons got the rebound, and Nurse drove coast to coast and hit a wide-open Breske with a bounce pass. Breske's layup gave BG a 10-4 lead as the Zips used a timeout.

Tecca scored for UA, but Prochaska hit a baseline jumper with exactly five minutes gone. Then, neither team hit a field goal for over three minutes. Prochaska split a pair of free throws for a 13-6 lead, and Baumgartner's jumper cut BG's advantage to five points at the 11:46 mark. Baumgartner's shot came after the Zips had started the game by going just 2-of-13 from the field.

Steffen slipped inside several Akron posts to get an offensive rebound and putback, beginning a 9-0 BG run. Then, after a UA miss, junior Maggie Hennegan drained a three-pointer, giving the Falcons an 18-8 lead and forcing the Zips to use another timeout.

But, the timeout did nothing to slow the Falcons. Steffen fed Breske for a layup, and sophomore Jessica Slagle's lob pass to Breske resulted in one of the senior co-captain's patented turnaround fadeaway jumpers, giving the Brown and Orange a 22-8 lead.

Breske picked up her second foul at the 6:48 mark, putting two of BGSU's starting post players on the bench with foul trouble (Uhl played only three first-half minutes), but everything else was rolling for the Falcons. Freshman Allison Papenfuss threw in a high arcing 'and-one' jumper at the 5:42 mark, drawing a foul from Baumgartner. The ensuing free-throw try did not drop, but junior Kelly Zuercher got the rebound, and Pontius hit a second-chance three-pointer, giving BGSU a five-point possession and a 29-12 lead.

Tecca scored for the Blue and Gold, but Prochaska scored after grabbing an offensive rebound, and Pontius fed Zuercher for a nifty layup and a 33-14 lead with 4:36 left in the half.

The Zips scored four-straight points, on a Kara Murphy jumper and a Guzzardo layup, but Prochaska hit a left-handed layup, then drained a three-pointer to give the Falcons a 20-point lead, the largest of the half, at 38-18. Akron, however, responded by scoring the final six points of the half. The first four came at the foul line, before a shot by Natasha Williams rattled around the rim and bounced in as the horn sounded, bringing the Zips within 38-24 at the break.

In the second half, Nurse got a defensive rebound and fed Uhl for a transition layup to open the scoring. After Tamboue hit a layup, Uhl found Breske for a layup and a 42-26 advantage.

Several minutes later, another drive by Nurse resulted in a layup for Breske as she was fouled. The senior completed the three-point play, giving the Brown and Orange a 45-28 lead.

Breske was heating up, hitting a turnaround banker from the right side for a 47-30 lead. Then, Nurse's jumper gave the Falcons a 19-point advantage.

The Zips responded with five quick points, but Uhl hit a trey from the right wing, and Steffen followed suit several minutes later. After a UA miss, the Falcons were off and running, and a long diagonal pass from Nurse hit Steffen in stride. The freshman pulled up in front of the BG bench and nailed a long-range attempt, giving the Falcons a 20-point lead once again, at 57-37.

Steffen's shot completed a stretch in which the Falcons went 8-of-9 from the field to begin the second half.

The only scoring over the next three-plus minutes came from Jasmine Mushington's two charity tosses, but Pontius hit a trey midway through the half for a 60-39 Falcon lead.

The Zips got within 17 points after a Baumgartner layup, but a Prochaska triple with 5:32 left began a 7-0 run, and BG's lead never dropped below 20 points thereafter. Zuercher's jumper with just under four minutes left gave BGSU a 70-47 lead. Tecca answered with a layup with 3:42 remaining, but the Zips would not score again.

BGSU scored the game's final 11 points, with nine of them coming at the stripe. The lone hoop in the final three-plus minutes came on a Steffen layup with 1:49 left.

The Falcons shot .545 in the second half en route to that 50 percent field-goal percentage for the game. BG held the Zips to a .340 success rate on the afternoon.

Hennegan pulled down a game-high nine rebounds as the Falcons held a 40-25 advantage on the glass. Prochaska, Uhl and Steffen each had five boards for the Brown and Orange. Tecca, who led UA in scoring in all three games vs. BGSU this year, also paced the Zips in rebounds in each of the latter two contests vs. the Falcons. She had seven boards on Friday.

The Falcons' game with Toledo on Saturday begins at 1:00 p.m. at "The Q." The game will be televised by Fox Sports Net, and according to the MAC's web site, will be available on the following stations/outlets: Fox Sports Ohio (main channel), Fox Sports Detroit Plus, Time-Warner Sports Net-Buffalo (Alt. Ch. 87) and ESPN Full Court. It is also scheduled to be available on the web via both ESPN360.com and All-MACcess.