Cleveland, OH- The MAC Women’s Basketball Tournament at Rocket Arena continued on Friday as Miami (OH) and Ohio faced off in Game 1 and Ball State battled Toledo in Game 2. MAC basketball rarely disappoints and Friday was no exception. The Redhawks of Miami (OH) are the No.1 seed in this tournament and they certainly played the part in their matchup with the Bobcats from Ohio. In the second game of the afternoon there was an upset as the No. 6 seed Toledo Rockets fired back late in the first half against the Ball State Cardinals and staved off a comeback by the No. 2 seeded Cardinals late in the game.
Here’s our MAC semifinal game summary breakdowns
Miami (OH) 80 Ohio 52
The battle between Miami (OH) and Ohio wasn’t much of one in the 1st half as they rolled to a 48-24. Miami looked like a “well oiled machine” controlling every aspect of the game. They hit 10 three pointers in half at one point hitting five in a row. They turned a 8-7 deficit in the first quarter into a dominating 21-8 lead during that stretch. Miami’s deadly three point shooting and their team defense combined to completely shut down Ohio in this game.
The Redhawks expanded the halftime lead up to 66-39 by the end of the third quarter. The lead climbed to 74-41 in the fourth quarter.
For the game, Miami was led in scoring by Amber Scalia with 22 points. She was lights out from the floor going 5 of 7 from beyond the arc. The Redhawks post play was led by Amber Tretter who grabbed 11 boards and finished with 14 points. It was team basketball for Miami (OH) on this night as they dished out 21 assists and got 28 points from the bench.
After the game, the coach of Miami (OH), talked about how it almost felt like a movie script after his team knocked down 16 three pointers on the night. When asked about an early stretch in the game where the Redhawks took the 8-7 deficit and ran off a 14-0 run behind four straight three pointers, Miami (OH) player Amber Tretter said, “ …we go into every game knowing it’s a 40 minute game…know matter what the score is at any point, we just playing our game, keep on our momentum and don’t really get concerned about what the score is and make the other team play with us for 40 minutes!”
Now, Miami (OH) will play in the MAC championship on Saturday. I asked Miami (OH) coach Glenn Box about the pressure of being the No. 1 seed and being one game away from going to the NCAA Tournament and how he goes about preparing his players for the big moment. He commented saying, “For us it’s about three ‘one game’ winning streaks… I’m a very intense individual, so it’s important for me to remain consistent with the team…when we walk out of that locker room, they (the players) have to feel my sense of urgency…we talk about the urgency word all the time, it’s probably the most popular word we use around here so we don’t want to take anything for granted…”
Toledo 69 Ball State 65
In the second game on the afternoon, it looked like we were going to have a repeat from the first game of the day as Ball State rushed out to a comfortable lead of 19-10 at the end of the first quarter. They led 29-19 with about two minutes in the half when Toledo stormed back with 11 unanswered points to close out the half with the lead at 30-29.
The second half played out like many MAC basketball games with physical and tough play along with dagger threes as both Ball State battled back and forth. The Cardinals of Ball State would hit a big bucket and the Rockets of Toledo would punch back holding onto the lead by the slimmest of margins.
Ball State battled back to tie the score at 53-53 with about 8:30 left in the game. Toledo then took another lead going up 58-53 but it was short lived as they closed the gap to 61-60 at the 4:57 mark.
From there Toledo kept Ball State from regrabbing the lead with some big free throws down the stretch. It was a big upset as the Rockets were the No. 6 seed and Ball State the No. 2 seed. But when you ask both the coaches Brady Sallee (Ball State) and Ginny Boggess (Toledo) these two basketball programs have a great deal of respect for each other and they would tell you that despite the seedings this was anyone’s game.
For the game Toledo got another outstanding game from Patricia Anumgba, who knocked down 29 points and grabbed nine boards. She seemed to be everywhere in this battle. For Ball State, they were led by Bree Salenbien with a whopping 34 points. Toledo held a 21-9 advantage in fast break points which helped them grab that lead in the first half.
Asked about the battle, and the energy the Toledo players brought to close out that impressive first half and what they felt especially from their teammates on the bench who were cheering them on, Anumgba, said, “It was great, even from the ones that are not playing and on the bench as they are very much part of the game as they players on the court, so them having energy on the bench just gives us a little more juice and it helped a lot in that spot.”
I followed up later and asked the Toledo coach Ginny Boggess what her message was going to be to her team as they now prepare to battle Miami (OH) in the championship game on Saturday. She shared that her message “…would be the same as it’s been since the first day back in July…we have everything we need right now in this room and it’s going to take all that we have, but we have everything that we need and they know it’s going to be hard… we talk about all the time the faith in the locker room and being able to rise up to the challenge…they’ve done that time and time again and I know that we’ll be ready to do that tomorrow.”
So the championship game is set. The game starts at 11 AM. The Rockets played in the championship game a year ago but fell to Ball State. Miami (OH) hasn’t played in a MAC title game since 2008. That year they beat Ohio for a trip to the NCAA tournament.
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