Poor play in the post on both sides of the ball led to Ohio dropping its ninth-consecutive game in Mid-American Conference play Thursday.
The Bobcats committed 34 fouls in a 71-64 loss to the Broncos, and their opportunities to clinch a home MAC Tournament game are sinking fast.
“We had a chance to extend the lead and unfortunately we were unable to do so,” coach Bob Boldon said. “It kinda came back to bite us as we were never able to do much in the second half to cut into that lead.”
Once again, the Bobcats had two players foul out, in sophomore forward Lexie Baldwin and freshman guard Quiera Lampkins, while junior guard Mariah Byard, redshirt sophomore Kat Yelle and freshman forwards Hannah Boesinger and Destini Cooper each finished the outing with four personals.
What did help Ohio was the play of sophomore guard Kiyanna Black, who converted 11 of the teams 21 total field goals.
“It was nice to see (Black) get hot,” Boldon said. “She really did just about everything a young lady could do to keep us into the game. Unfortunately we couldn’t do much to help her…her effort offensively was solid. We couldn’t quite get anything going around her.”
The Bobcats jumped out to a seven-point lead with 4:37 to play in the opening half, but the Broncos slowly came back and took a 30-27 lead at the break.
As Western Michigan began to take control, a trifecta from Black tied the game at 50 with 7:50 to play, but the Broncos then went on a 15-5 run and pulled away.
It seemed like every time Western Michigan entered the post, Ohio committed a foul. In addition, the Bobcats were outrebounded 48-36, which made it hard to regain any momentum.
But the big difference maker was the lack of scoring from the Bobcat bench, as Western Michigan’s bench outscored Ohio 33-13.
With just five games remaining, the Bobcats are in need of a push to end their season-long losing streak. Ohio lost 12 straight games in MAC play last season.
“Obviously we’d love to play at home in the tournament but we’ll just get back on campus and start preparing to Akron and see what happens,” Boldon said. “Hopefully we’ll be a little bit better on Saturday.”
@charliehatch_
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