Bulls lose to Rockets despite bench player's big night

Wednesday night in Toledo the UB women's basketball team suffered a tough loss, despite a breakout performance from freshman Flynn Pyykkonen.

The Bulls fell to the Toledo Rockets (9-9 overall, 5-2 MAC) by a final score of 81-60, despite Pyykkonen's 22 points. Allison Bennett added 12 more for the Bulls (3-14 overall, 1-5 Mid-American Conference).

Those strong performances were negated as the Bulls turned the ball over 21 times, and Toledo was able to capitalize with 24 points off of Buffalo turnovers.

Heather Turner, who has been the Bulls' most solid player of the year, faced foul trouble early and often and ended up fouling out of the game after playing for only 19 minutes.

With Turner not filling her usual role as an offensive power for the Bulls, UB looked for scoring from another source.

Stepping up in this game was Pyykkonen, who came off the bench to finish with 22 points.

"Flynn obviously had a great game for us, and it was nice to see someone come off the bench and put points on the board like she did tonight," stated Bulls' head coach Cheryl Dozier in a press release.

The Bulls have been in serious need of someone stepping up from the bench to score points, with the UB bench averaging a combined 14.9 points per game.

Their bench effort was not enough to overcome the Rockets' deadly accuracy from the land of plenty. Toledo shot their 3-pointers at a 57.1 percent clip, nailing seven out of ten in the first half.

"We turned the ball over way too much and allowed Toledo to hurt us with the three," stated Dozier.

UB, on the other hand, was ice cold in comparison, shooting a respectable 38.9 percent from 3-point land, but their dismal first half 3-point performance did them in. The Bulls hit just three of their 12 3-point attempts in the first half.

For the second game in a row, the Bulls had only six players reach double-digit minutes. As compared to Toledo, which had all of its players on the floor for over ten minutes, it would seem as if the Bulls' six player rotation has not been working out well enough to keep the levels of fatigue in check to allow the team to play hard for the full 40 minutes.

Rocket Karin Boggendam took advantage of the Bulls' fatigue in this game, dumping in 23 points on 8-for-15 shooting and 7-for-8 shooting from the charity stripe. Three other Rockets scored over ten points, including Danielle Bishop who scored 17, Crystal Young who had 11 and Kristi Zeller who added 10 points to the mix.

Bulls look ahead to Bobcats

On Saturday, the Bulls will face the Ohio Bobcats (7-10 overall, 3-3 MAC). The Bobcats are currently third in the MAC, and a victory would propel them into a tie for second, and possibly even a three-way tie for first, depending on the outcome of Kent State's and Marshall's weekend games.

"Saturday's another game, and we have to turn our focus to Ohio now," stated Dozier.

The Bulls will especially have to turn their focus to Kristen Kirkpatrick, who is averaging 11.2 points per game and is shooting 50.7 percent from the field. She has been the Bobcats' main scoring threat this year.

Ohio doesn't have the worst 3-point shooting team in the MAC, but their 3-point threat is not one that has to be focused on by the Bulls' defense. The Bobcats' leading 3-point shooter is Simone Redd, who is shooting 34.6 percent from beyond the arc this year.

Tip off is set for 1 p.m on Saturday at Ohio's Convocation Center.