Bowling Green Falcons guard Lexi Fleming (25) and Bowling Green Falcons guard Amy Velasco (1) pressure Toledo Rockets guard Sammi Mikonowicz (33) during the fourth quarter of a game on March 4, 2023 at Savage Arena in Toledo, Ohio. Toledo defeated Bowling Green 62-56.
Scott W. Grau | Sentinel-Tribune
TOLEDO — Toledo won its second straight outright Mid-American Conference women’s basketball championship with a 62-56 win over Bowling Green Saturday, and it was Wood County’s own Sammi Mikonowicz who played the starring role for the Rockets.
In front of 6,806 fans at John F. Savage Arena, Mikonowicz pieced together a double-double 17 points, 13 rebounds, and four assists to lead the Rockets. She was 4-for-9 from the field, 1-for-3 from the arc, and made 8-of-10 free throws.
Mikonowicz, a 5-foot-10 junior from Rossford who plays both guard and forward, gave partial credit to the packed house.
“These fans, Man, both Wednesday (64-60 win over Kent State) and today, they are crazy,” Mikonowicz said. “You can’t hear anything out there.
“But it’s like good because you can tell when we had momentum, BG didn’t like that shift. I could feel that momentum shift and it just gave me chills to hear the crowd going crazy.”
Toledo rebounded from a 28-19 halftime deficit, scoring 22 points in each of the final two quarters to pull away.
Mikonowicz said the difference in the second half was the Rockets’ defense and scoring in the paint, where Toledo had a 30-22 scoring advantage.
“I think we really stepped it up on defense and got stops. We ran out offense a lot better. We noticed that going down low was working, and they weren’t having an answer for it,” Mikonowicz said.
“So, we just kept pounding it in, pounding it in. I think that was a great difference-maker because they didn’t have a stop for it, and that’s what slowly built us that lead.”
BGSU coach Robyn Fralick credited Mikonowicz for her hustle on the court.
“Toledo played a real good game and I thought Sammi played well in the second half. She did a good job, and we had a hard time guarding her,” Fralick said.
As a result, Toledo (25-4 overall, 16-2 MAC) gets the No. 1 seed in the Mid-American Conference tournament, which begins Wednesday at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage Arena. BGSU (25-5, 13-4) gets the No. 2 seed.
Mikonowicz said it is well-deserved, especially after the Rockets avenged their loss to the Falcons at the Stroh Center (88-76 BGSU win) on January 18.
“Oh my gosh, it means the world,” Mikonowicz said. “We’ve been working for this all year, and I think, especially when back at their place, that wasn’t our game.
“That wasn’t Toledo basketball. It wasn’t the blue collar, gold standard, but today in the second half we came out and we knew we had to fight. That’s our basketball and that just proves we can do anything. We weren’t going to go down without a fight.”
Senior guard Quinesha Lockett had 13 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals for the Rockets, but turned the ball over seven times.
Toledo 6-0 junior forward Nan Garcia dominated down low and showed off her soft shooting touch from 15 feet, scoring 10 points with five rebounds and two steals.
BGSU senior guard Elissa Brett led all scorers with 23 points and two steals and senior forward Allison Day had 14 points and two steals.
Toledo had 30 free throw chances, making 22 (73%), while the Falcons had only 10 shots from the stripe, making eight, which Fralick felt played a key role.
“This game I thought we had a real good first half. The second half, the difference in the game was they shot a ton of free throws and we had a hard time scoring,” Fralick said.
In the first half, BGSU held the Rockets to single digits, nine points in each quarter, to take a 27-18 lead at intermission.
The Falcons forced 10 turnovers and held Toledo to 30% shooting (6-for-20), including 1-for-6 (17%) from the arc.
Toledo grabbed an early 7-3 lead, but the Falcons closed the first quarter on an 11-2 run. The Falcons last two buckets were scored in the paint by Day off assists from sophomore guard Amy Velasco.
Similarly, Toledo trailed 20-16 after sophomore forward Jessica Cook and senior guard Sophia Wiard combined to connect on four straight free throws.
However, Brett hit a triple, sophomore guard Jocelyn Tate connected on a 16-foot jumper and after junior guard Lexi Fleming misjudged a bunny in transition, Tate followed up with the rebound and putback as BGSU finished the half on a 7-2 run.
By halftime, Brett was already in double figures, scoring 11 points after shooting 4-for-9 from the field, including 3-for-7 from the arc and Velasco had four assists.
Fralick says the Falcons will live for another day, perhaps even meeting Toledo in the finals of the MAC tournament if all goes as planned.
She added that its time that multiple teams from the MAC get bids for the NCAA tournament, the league has gotten that good, but feels the computer rating system the NCAA uses does not do Division I mid-majors justice.
“It was a great atmosphere, great women’s basketball game coming down to the last game of the season — all things good about our league,” Fralick said.
“I think we’ll learn from this game, and we know that obviously Cleveland is a new season, and we are going to have to get better for that.”
For the Falcons, Tate, who fouled out with over four minutes remaining, finished with seven points and seven rebounds.
Junior guard Nyla Hampton had five points, three assists and two steals, Fleming had five points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals and Velasco had two points and five assists.
