Falcons top Golden Flashes in finale of regular season

3/7/2013

KENT, Ohio — The Bowling Green State University women’s basketball team defeated Kent State 51-43 Wednesday.

Chrissy Steffen scored 13 points, while Miriam Justinger added nine for the Falcons, who improved to 20-9 overall and 11-5 in the Mid-American Conference.

Diamon Beckford scored 14 points to lead the Golden Flashes (3-26, 1-15 MAC).

Despite the win, BG finished fifth in the MAC tournament seedings. As a result, the Falcons will host Kent State in a first-round tournament game at the Stroh Center Saturday at 1 p.m.

The Flashes lost a coin flip with Ohio, which also was 1-15 in the MAC, to determine the 12th and final seed — and BG’s opponent Saturday.

In Wednesday’s game, Bowling Green led 8-1 just five minutes in, but managed just eight points the rest of the half. The Falcons made just 7-of-27 shots from the floor (25.9 percent) and turned the ball over seven times.

Fortunately, Kent State also struggled on offense, making just 6-of-22 (27.3 percent) with 11 turnovers. So there were three ties before Steffen made a 3-pointer with 52 seconds left in the half to give the Falcons the lead for good.

That basket, and a free throw by Alexis Rogers, helped BG carry a 16-14 lead into the half.

The Falcons never trailed in the second half, but they never were able to pull away from Kent State until late.

Bowling Green led 24-20 with 11:45 left before a layup by Jill Stein sparked a 9-2 run.

BG built its lead to 14 points before Kent State made a pair of 3-pointers in the final two minutes to narrow the final margin.