Kent State’s women’s basketball team played from behind the entire game in a 66-57 loss to Bowling Green. 

KSU fell to 11-6 and 3-3 in the MAC. Kent State is now in sixth place in the MAC.

BGSU improved to 16-2 overall and a 5-1 record in the MAC 

Graduate student forward Lindsey Thall led the team in scoring with 15 points, adding a rebound, assist and steal. Freshman guard Corynne Hauser added 13 points. 

Slow Start

Kent State could not get much going as the Falcons were up 21-10 at the end of the first quarter. 

The Flashes shot just 27% from the field and went 1-for-4 from three.

Bowling Green shot 58% from the field in the opening quarter while going 50% from beyond the arc. 

KSU had ten turnovers in the first quarter and finished with 13 at the half as Bowling Green was able to capitalize and score 17 of their points off turnovers.

“They’re number one in the country in turnover margin so they’re gonna get some of that, it’s just what those lead to,” coach Todd Starkey said. “I would’ve liked fewer than that but I don’t think that hurt us. The story of the whole game is our field goal percentage and free throw percentage.”

Not much changed in the second quarter. Kent State improved from the field going 5-for-14 but shot worse from beyond the arc with 20% shooting. 

BGSU led Kent State 32-21 at the half.

The Falcons shot 23% from the field and 28% from 3-point range at the half. The Flashes shot 35% from the field. 

Too little too late

Kent State continued to struggle in the second half, after Bowling Green went on a 7-0 run to start the third quarter.

The Flashes shot 7-for-21 from the field in the third going 1-for-4 from three. In the fourth KSU shot 6-for-13 from the field and 2-of-6 from 3-point range. 

Kent State’s bench kept them in the game, outscoring the Falcons 19-10 in bench points. 

“We got a really nice spark from Tatiana Thomas, she’s a talented player and she’s still trying to find her way and that type of thing so it was really nice to see her come off the bench and do some nice things especially defensively for us,” Starkey said. “Our bench is always gonna have pretty good scoring because we use our bench more than most teams do.”

KSU attempted to come back in the fourth, shooting its best quarter of the game.

Kent State shot 46% from the field in the fourth quarter along with shooting 33% from three. 

The Flashes were even able to cut the lead down to seven in the fourth quarter, trailing 44-37. This was the smallest lead the Falcons had all game.

As a team Kent State shot 5-for-19 from beyond the arc and 21-for-59 from the field. 

Senior guard Clare Kelly led the team in three’s going 2-of-5 from beyond the arc while putting up 10 points. 

Bounce Back

Kent State looks to bounce back as they travel to Northern Illinois to face the 10-7 Huskies who are 5-2 at home in conference play. 

NIU is 2-4 in the MAC. The Huskies sit in ninth place in the conference coming off of back-to-back losses as one of them was to Eastern Michigan. 

Tipoff is Wednesday 7 p.m. in DeKalb, Illinois.

Kyle Kuchta is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].