The start was very
impressive. The finish not so much.Still, the Bowling Green State University women’s basketball team had
more than enough to dominate St. Francis (Pa.) 81-66 Sunday afternoon in the Stroh Center.‘‘Our first half
was incredible. We just have to take that and play the full 40 minutes,’’ said BG’s Erica Donovan. ‘‘When
we’re up by 20, 40, we can’t bring our momentum down; that’s when teams start to come back.’’ PHOTO
GALLERYThe
Falcons scored the first 11 points of the game, and were never headed. BG led 51-19 with 3:10 left in the
first half. St. Francis closed the first half on a 15-1 run.‘‘I told our team to get out and go,’’ BG head
coach Jennifer Roos said. ‘‘We came out and made it a point to really shoot well.‘‘The first 10 minutes was
probably some of the best basketball we have played all season long,’’ she added.St. Francis out-scored the
Falcons, 32-29 in the second half, but Bowling Green still had enough of a lead to never really be in
trouble.‘‘They came in with a different intensity … We didn’t stay composed. We didn’t play Bowling Green
basketball, like we normally play,’’ Donovan said about the second half.The Red Flash used a full-court
trapping press, and a zone for about three-fourths of the game.‘‘We had actually had prepped for them to
play a lot of man, so our preparation for the zone wasn’t there,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘We couldn’t get past the
zone, we couldn’t get past the trapping … without turning the ball over.’’Bowling Green had 21 turnovers,
11 in the second half.‘‘They just threw a kind of scramble zone at us, which really slowed our tempo down
… They threw us a little bit of a curve,’’ Roos said. ‘‘It forced us into a lot of missed layups. We
missed a lot of opportunities to get the ball inside, but the skip pass was wide open.‘‘They finished much
stronger at the end then we did,’’ Roos added.The Falcons had five players score in double-figures with
Donovan finishing with a career-high 22 points, and 10 rebounds. She scored 11 points in the first five
minutes of the game.Other leaders for BG were: Deborah Hoekstra, 16 points, five rebounds; Miriam Justinger,
12 points, and a career-high nine rebounds; Alexis Rogers, 10 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three
steals; and Jillian Halfhill, 10 points.BG opens Mid-American Conference play Saturday against Buffalo in
the Stroh Center with tipoff at 2 p.m.NOTES: BG is 10-2 overall and St. Francis is 2-9 … It’s the seventh
time in the last eight seasons, BG has had double-digit wins in the non-conference portion of the schedule
… The Falcons had nine players dressed on Sunday with all nine seeing action, and eight playing 19 minutes
or more … Eight of the nine scored at least two points … Seven of the nine had at least one assist …
Both teams were cold from the 3-point arc in the second half, going a combined 3-for-26 … Sparked by
Hoekstra’s 16 points, BG’s bench produced 25 points … BG held a 53-36 rebounding advantage.