Sports

Ohio Women Drop Fourth Straight

Posted on: Sunday, January 20, 2013

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Having lost their last three games, the Ohio Bobcats (5-11, 0-4) hosted the Bowling Green Falcons (12-5, 3-1) in dyer need of picking up their first conference victory. Set back by a plague of unfortunate injuries and suffering considerably as a result, the Bobcats were unable to hunt down the Falcons and fell, 67-41.

The dominance in the paint and excellent shooting from Bowling Green early on allowed the Falcons to take a tranquil 19-point advantage into the half.

The Falcons entered the break outscoring the ‘Cats 14-2 in the paint, while knocking in 58 percent of their shots from the field, contributing five three-pointers. Ohio, on the other hand, went into halftime shooting 24 percent from the field with zero points from the bench.

Defensively, Ohio began the game with a man-to-man set that enforced a trap on the ball handler, but it proved to be unsuccessful.

“Well, our game plan was to come out and aggressively trap them,” Ohio head coach Semeka Randall said. “We showed from the start that we really weren’t invested in that, so we had to change our game plan up real quick. I give our team credit for making the adjustment for something that we really didn’t work that much on.”

It was the Falcons’ defense, however, that proved to be the key to their dominance.

Bowling Green was able to utilize its size and physicality against Ohio, which resulted in sloppy play from the ‘Cats.  Ohio closed the game shooting 29.4 percent, hitting 15 of its 51 attempted shots.

Freshman guard Kiyanna Black had a team-high 14 points and two assists, while senior Symone Lyles added an additional 11 points and six rebounds.

The lack of depth off the bench for the Bobcats contributed greatly to their misfortunes.

The starting five were forced to play more than 30 minutes each, while only two players came off of the bench in relief. Bowling Green, on the contrary, was able to utilize its bench quite effectively and outscored the ‘Cats 32-2 in that aspect.

Ten players scored for the Falcons while five scored for the ‘Cats.

Ohio’s next game is Wednesday, Jan. 23 at the Convocation Center at 7:00 p.m. against MAC-West division leader, Central Michigan.