An extraordinary comeback on the part of Kent State Women’s basketball (10-5 overall, 3-1 MAC conference) wasn’t enough to pull out a win against Ohio University (14-1 overall, 3-1 MAC conference) Wednesday.

With four minutes left in the first quarter the Flashes found themselves trailing 8-3, with all of the Flashes points coming from the free-throw line. The Flashes trailed 25-12 after the first quarter, with senior guard Alexa Golden leading the Flashes with eight points and three rebounds.

“She plays extremely hard on both ends of the floor and she is one of our leaders,” assistant coach Morgan Toles said of Golden’s play in her postgame radio interview.

The Flashes opened the second quarter with back-to-back buckets, but their offensive prowess was fleeting.  The Bobcats were able to get up and down the floor much quicker than the Flashes, which led the Bobcats extending their lead to 46-31 at halftime. 

“There a really good team and they run a very unique system and they are very good at it and very experienced,” Toles said. “We have got to be better defensively. We can’t have starts like that against a team this good”

The third quarter opened with what the Flashes do best, which is making shots from the free throw line.

The Bobcats fouls’ started to add up, which gave Kent State an opportunity to play a little more aggressively. The strategy worked, and the Flashes were able to stage a mini comeback. With just over three minutes remaining in the quarter, junior guard Megan Carter knocked down two free-throws to cut the Ohio lead to 53-44. Neither team was able to generate a great offensive flow throughout the third quarter, with the Flashes finding themselves down 57-50 after the third quarter.

Kent State spent the fourth quarter attacking the basket and working to draw fouls on Bobcat players who were already in foul trouble, such as sophomore guard Cece Hooks and sophomore forward Gabby Burris.

“They are really aggressive and we tried to take advantage of how aggressive they were,” Toles said.

Within the first three minutes of the quarter, Carter had a jump-shot to make it 63-59. A minute later, freshman forward Lindsey Thall followed by barreling to the basket and scoring a lay-up to make make it a two-point game at 63-61 . The Flashes continued to battle back throughout the fourth, but it ended up not being enough, wit the Bobcats taking home a 83-81 win.

“We dug ourselves a hole early, and it’s hard to come back against a team like this.” Toles said. “I will give our team a lot of credit, they fought.”

Kent State returns to action at home on Saturday against Central Michigan at noon in the M.A.C. center. Central Michigan remains undefeated in the Western division of the conference.

“We’ve got a big game coming up this weekend,” Toles said, “and we are excited to watch them and see what we can do against them.”

Gina Butkovich is a sports reporter. Contact her at [email protected].