Bowling Green snatches late victory away from Arkansas in Dayton Beach Classic

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

For a couple of minutes Friday afternoon at Daytona Beach (Fla.) Classic, it looked like Arkansas had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat – twice.

But the jaws bit back both times.

Erika Porter’s basket in the lane with 8 seconds left negated Jenna Lawrence’s clutch 3-pointer six seconds earlier to lift Bowling Green past Arkansas 79-78 in women’s college basketball action at the Ocean Center.

Izzy Higginbottom had a game-high 26 points and hit all 11 of her free throws attempts for Arkansas, including two charity tosses with 30 seconds left to give her team a 75-74 lead.

But Amy Velasco’s bucket and free throw just four second later put Bowling Green (4-4) up 77-75 and proceeded the even later heroics.

“It’s good to see that we didn’t quit and we can execute and get the short hat we wanted,” Arkansas head coach Mike Neighbors said. “Good to see Jenna see the ball go in and that will carry over for us.

“Nevertheless it is just disappointing. Wins and losses – the margin of error (is small) on how you feel if that shot doesn’t go in or this doesn’t happen.

“…I think we made the right decisions (late), but we just didn’t get the results we wanted.”

The result meant an 0-2 trip for Arkansas (4-5), who dropped a 70-56 decision to unbeaten Oklahoma State on Thursday.

The Razorbacks will host Boston College Thursday night at 6 p.m. in the SEC/ACC Challenge.

“We will have our work cut out for us rallying our kids,” Neighbors said. “It’s hard to go 0-2 and go back and face a really tough Boston College team so.”

Lawrence has 13 of her 21 points before intermission as the Razorbacks took a 24-17 lead by the end of the first quarter and pushed that to 43-31 on Higginbottom’s lay up at the halftime buzzer.

But Bowling Green dominated the third quarter, outscoring Arkansas 29-18.

Paige Kohler has 11 of her 25 points in the third quarter and Velasco 7 of her 13 in game where those two and Porter (18 points) led the way for the Falcons.

“I thought Koehler really got going,” Neighbors said. “They really had the inside out going with her going and Porter going…I’m not telling you that we did anything wrong, but they made us wrong. If we helped on the wrong kid, they swung it to the right kid.

“If we didn’t get off the help, they threw it inside. So every single error we made, it got magnified..They shoot 73 (percent) in the third quarter – 11 out of 15, 18 for 29 (in the second half).

Arkansas hit nearly 70 percent (9 of its 13) of its field goal attempts in the opening quarter – including 4 of 8 3-pointers – but was just 18 of 43 from the floor in three frames.

“We shot it pretty well early, but sometimes we know that’s fools gold,” Neighbors said. “We got to relying on it too much.”

Kiki Smith added 11 points for Arkansas while Lawrence also had 5 blocked shots and 4 rebounds but foul-plagued Vera Ojenuwa was limited to 5 points 2 rebounds before fouling out while playing 15 minutes.

“I thought Jenna player her guts out,” Neighbors said. “Vera (Ojenuwa) was again in full trouble, which is something that we are doing every thing we can do to try and avoid, but it just keeps happening.

“But Jenna did an unbelievable job in that and I thought that everybody that came off our bench coming off no days rest really gutted it out.”

“Too many missed assignments defensively and then I felt like we got a little bit rushed there in the second half with our shot selection. We took some shots where we probably could have waited a little bit longer in the shot clock to take an open one.

Neighbors is most concerned about his team’s defensive lapses.

“It’s getting to the point where we have got the change the way we are telling them, the manner and methods that we are telling them,” Neighbors said, “or we are going to have to figure out some players who haven’t had a chance yet are going to have to get a chance.”

Photo by Razorback Communications