It took the Kent State women’s basketball team 22 minutes to reach double digits, as the Flashes could not find the bottom of the net against Buffalo.

Kent State fell to Buffalo 81-45, Sunday afternoon in front of 1,574 at Alumni Arena in Buffalo, N.Y.

Kent State came out slow on the offensive end, but was very aggressive defensively. The Flashes extended a full court press to pressure Buffalo’s ball handlers.

The Bulls (10-18, 8-7 Mid-American Conference) came out firing, quickly gaining an 8-0 lead just four minutes into the start of the game.

The Flashes (3-25, 1-14 MAC) started substituting early, as head coach Danielle O’Banion seemed to be searching for the right combination to bring a spark to the Flashes’ play.

“We simply have to compete harder and prepare better,” O’Banion said. “I thought we were very quiet in the beginning of the game, which is a trend that has been better over the last two or three games, so that will be one of our first things, get back to starting the game better.”

Buffalo continued to shut down Kent State, 15-0 with 12 minutes left in the first half.

Senior Trisha Krewson was the first Flash to find the bottom of the net with the Flashes trailing by 15. Krewson finished the game with 11 points and 4 rebounds.

O’Banion believed that simply taking better care of the ball could have solved a large majority of the problems going into halftime.

“We talked about how we could better attack their match-up zone defense, how we could better take care of the basketball and how, more importantly, we could represent ourselves,” O’Banion said.

Kent State was unable to take advantage of a small scoring drought by the Bulls, scoring only six points before Buffalo was able to get back on track and extend its lead to 20.

The Flashes finished the first half with 14 turnovers, which did not help them in the last minute of the first half as the Flashes went into the locker room down 31-9. The Flashes could not even reach double digits, shooting only 17 percent from the field in the first.

Kent State started off the second half with two straight turnovers, as Buffalo was able to score on their first two possessions. The lackluster second half continued, as the Flashes were unable to keeps the Bulls from scoring.

Buffalo strung together a number of 3-pointers as they continued to run up the score and grab offensive rebounds, making it very difficult for the Flashes to catch up.

Mackenzie Loesing led the way for the Bulls with 17 points. As a team, Buffalo was able to shoot 49 percent from the field while knocking down 10 3-pointers.

As Kent State plays Bowling Green at home on Wednesday, and tournament play begins, the Flashes will need to play a complete game to compete against tough MAC opponents.

“[Bowling Green is] a tremendous basketball team, they move the ball well, they are very offensively talented, and they are very tough defensively,” O’Banion said. “Our margin of error on Wednesday is very small.”

Contact Meghan Blaha at [email protected].