Statistics vs Western Michigan
Ball State free throws: 20-31
Western Michigan free throws: 10-14
Ball State steals: 11
Western Michigan steals: 5
Ball State points off turnovers: 22
Western Michigan points off turnovers: 12
Fontaine watch
Tamara Bowie career points (BSU record): 2,091
Nathalie Fontaine career points: 2,036
Head coach Brady Sallee said he was happy with the toughness his team showed throughout the game.
“I don’t know that you’d put a frame on this one and hang it out in your living room, but there’s a place for this in our house,” he said.
Ball State trailed the Broncos with 3:51 left in the game, 54-49, but a layup by sophomore forward Frannie Frazier kicked off an 11-0 run to end the game. Sallee said the Cardinals were "as good as we've looked in those situations."
“They couldn’t get a shot up, hardly, and they shot two or three air-balls to finish the game out," Sallee said. "It was good to see us locked in that way on a frustrating night where we could have lost easy.”
The Cardinals finally took the lead, 55-54, when senior guard Nathalie Fontaine scored with 1:36 remaining in the game – 30 minutes and 45 seconds after Western Michigan took an 8-7 lead in the first quarter.
Fontaine led Ball State with both 17 points and 10 rebounds for her 14th double-double of the season. Still, she only made 6 of her 17 shots from the floor, well below her 52.5 field goal percentage entering the game.
“I couldn’t hit a shot to save my life today, but I just have to stick with it,” Fontaine said.
Sallee said the Cardinals pulled out the win because of the other players' mentality to step up.
“Tonight, instead of watching [Fontaine], other people said, ‘you know what? I’m gonna go make a play,’” Sallee said.
Junior guard Jill Morrison, who totaled five assists and no turnovers, said the win was a "prime example” of the team’s potential.
While the Cardinals ended the game with the 11-0 run, Sallee said the momentum shifted at the end of the third quarter.
With 24 seconds left in the third, sophomore guard Brionna Simond stole the ball from senior Western Michigan guard Alex Morton and sprinted toward the basket. She went up for a layup but crashed to the court after a hard foul by sophomore Bronco guard LaTondra Brooks.
Simond sank both free throws to cut Western Michigan’s lead to four points, 41-37.
Sallee said that play, along with sophomore Moriah Monaco's steal on the ensuing Western Michigan possession, turned the tide of the game.
“We got excited about that and then, all of the sudden, you see all of us trying to play that way,” he said. "I credited [Simond] in the locker room with kind of starting that momentum for us. I think it just kind of clicked with our kids like, oh, let’s just go do that.”
The win broke a tie in the all-time series between Ball State and Western Michigan, with the Cardinals taking the 37-36 all-time series lead.
Ball State is now tied with Toledo (15-10, 10-4 MAC) for second in the MAC West Division. The Cardinals will take on division-leader Central Michigan (17-8, 11-3 MAC) in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., on Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m.
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