Efficient Falcons flock to post in victory

11/4/2012
BY JOHN WAGNER
BLADE SPORTS WRITER

BOWLING GREEN — Alli­son Pap­en­fuss ad­mit­ted that she and her Bowl­ing Green State Univer­sity women’s bas­ket­ball team­mates had a goal for the team’s ex­hi­bi­tion opener against Slip­pery Rock on Satur­day.

“We re­ally, re­ally wanted to start out strong and make a state­ment,” said Pap­en­fuss, an An­thony Wayne grad­u­ate. “We wanted to prove that we’re still Bowl­ing Green.

“Just be­cause coach [Curt] Miller left, we’re still Bowl­ing Green — and not that much has changed.”

Con­sider the state­ment made as the Fal­cons rolled to an easy 105-39 win at the Stroh Center. Pap­en­fuss led four BG play­ers in dou­ble fig­ures with 29 points and tied Jill Stein with a game-high eight re­bounds. Alexis Rogers scored 18 points, Bai­ley Cairn­duff 12, and Jil­lian Half­hill 11.

Slip­pery Rock, which lost to Mich­i­gan 106-35 on Fri­day night, had three play­ers — Christa Wodarczyk, Alexis Mayo, and Da­nielle Gar­route — score six points.

Satur­day’s game turned into a rout early, with Bowl­ing Green scor­ing 16 un­an­swered points dur­ing a six-minute span mid­way through the first half to build a 31-8 lead, then scor­ing 19 straight late in the pe­riod to lead 55-14 at the break. The Fal­cons led by as many as 69 points in the sec­ond half be­fore set­tling on the fi­nal mar­gin.

“I was happy with our per­for­mance over­all,” BG coach Jen­ni­fer Roos said. “[Slip­pery Rock] played Mich­i­gan last night and came in tired, and I think they are a bet­ter team than they showed.

“I’m pleased in par­tic­u­lar with the post play. We have a four-player ro­ta­tion with Alexis Rogers and Da­nielle Havel … and any time you can bring two up­per­class­men off the bench like Jill Stein and Alli­son Pap­en­fuss, that’s a plus.”

That quar­tet com­bined to make 22 of 30 shots from the floor (73.3 per­cent), grabbed 26 of BG’s 43 re­bounds, and helped the Fal­cons score 64 points in the paint.

“We’ve got a re­ally vet­eran post group, and we’re look­ing to make all of us more of a [scor­ing] op­tion,” Pap­en­fuss said. “Hope­fully when we get the ball down low, it will free up peo­ple like Chrissy Stef­fen … and get her more shots.”

All three new­com­ers to the pro­gram had strong de­buts. Cairn­duff, a fresh­man, started and had five re­bounds and three steals to go with her 12 points, while Northview prod­uct Mir­iam Just­inger, also a fresh­man, came off the bench to con­trib­ute nine points, five boards, and three steals. Ju­nior-col­lege transfer point guard Kat­rina Sa­li­nas added five points, five as­sists, and four steals.

“This is a lit­tle like Christ­mas Day when you’re a fresh face in any pro­gram,” Roos said. “I was very happy with their per­for­mance.

“They can im­prove, don’t get me wrong, but I re­mem­ber my first col­le­giate game, and they did much bet­ter than I my first time out. So I was happy with their ef­fort over­all.”

NOTES: Soph­o­more guard Jas­mine Mat­thews was in uni­form but did not play, while soph­o­more guard Deb­o­rah Hoek­stra was not in uni­form. Roos did not dis­close the na­ture of the in­ju­ries but said she ex­pects both to re­turn to ac­tion soon. ... The Fal­cons open the reg­u­lar sea­son on Satur­day by host­ing Madonna at the Stroh Center, start­ing at 1 p.m.

Con­tract: John Wag­ner at:

jwag­ner@the­blade.com,

419-724-6481 or on

Twit­ter @jwag­ner­blade.