In Sylvia Crawley's biggest game as coach thus far in her career, she received little help from her two most productive players.
Ohio (8-8, 1-3 Mid-American Conference) needed strong showings from guards Rachel Frederick and Lauren Kohn if it had a shot at upsetting No. 18 Bowling Green at home Saturday.
But the Bobcats' leading rebounder and scorer were non-factors for them in a 64-55 loss to the Falcons.
The duo shot a combined 2-13, with Frederick finishing with only two boards and scoring zero points for only the second time in 45 career starts.
They did a good job of trying to take away our strengths
Kohn said. It was very noticeable that they had a good scouting report. It forced us to think on our feet and look for other options.
But in the first half, Bowling Green didn't look like the team that came into the game with the highest ranking ever in conference history.
It was a back-and-forth 20 minutes, with six lead changes and two tied scores.
In the first half we switched up our defenses a lot and forced them to think a little bit Crawley said. We never ran the same defense more than two times consecutively.
Ohio used a 7-0 run to go up 21-17 with 6:28 left in the half, but the Falcons' next 11-2 surge gave them the lead for the rest of the game.
Any basketball game is a game of runs
Kohn added. It's how the game goes. Going into halftime only being down five
we were still really confident in our game. They're not unbeatable.
But Bowling Green went on an 8-0 run after the break, and the 'Cats didn't make a shot until the 15:58 mark.
By then it was clear that the Falcons were shutting down the Bobcats' top two players. Frederick and Kohn, who average a combined 31 points, were held to just nine.
Our kids did a great job of recognizing who (Ohio's) go-to players were
Falcons' coach Curt Miller said. We were dialed in on Frederick and Kohn and did as good a job as you can against two very good scorers in this league.
Guard Jennifer Bushby, who was heavily recruited by Bowling Green, made her second career start in place of the recovering Simone Redd.
Although Redd did see six minutes of playing time, it was Bushby who continued to shine, finishing with nine points and eight rebounds.
She had her first start in the last game
so she's kinda got the jitters out
Crawley said of the freshman. But in big games like this when one of our key player is out
it has to be in the back of our players' minds that we don't have Simone.
Ohio, however, can take comfort in the fact that its defense held the Falcons to ten below their average of 74 points per game.
We've had multiple games this year where we've shot the ball tremendously and coasted to victory
Miller said. Our defense saved us. (Ohio was) really aggressive against us tonight.
The 'Cats return to the road to face Akron tonight at 7. After falling to Buffalo on Saturday, 64-58, the Zips are one of three teams still winless in the MAC.
