CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The women's basketball team's season came to an end with an 85-71 defeat by the Miami Redhawks in the quarterfinals of the Mid-American Conference Tournament on Wednesday.
Even though the Cardinals were coming off of one of their better performances of the season, defeating Northern Illinois on Saturday to break a six-game losing streak, the No. 1 seed RedHawks proved to be too much for the Cardinals.
"I really felt like coming into this game we were playing our best ball and we were really playing hard and we had effort and energy and excitement," head coach Tracy Roller said. "Nobody wants to play Miami right now and unfortunately we got the draw."
The Cards were able to stick with the top-seeded Miami in the opening minutes, getting the first points of the game from senior Johna Goff's three-pointer. They built a lead of five, their largest of the game, twice: once at the 10:11 mark and again with 8:36 left in the first half.
The RedHawks started to open up the game when they completed a 7-0 run to get a lead they would not relinquish. Miami continued to build their advantage closing the half on a 13-1 run to send them into the break ahead 46-32.
"When we came in and got ourselves in a hole the first half, I was really proud of our team and the heart that we had in the second half," Roller said. "We were just beaten tonight by a better Miami team."
Miami outshoot the Cards' by 21 percent in the first half, ending it with a 56 percent effort. Ball State shot only 35 percent.
Ball State started to warm up slightly from the floor during the second half, enabling them to complete a 14-3 run and pull within 65-60 with 9:49 left to play. Miami wanted nothing to do with Ball State's comeback, answering it by scoring 10 straight.
"I knew once we got down on a Miami team that's so offensive that it would be difficult to come back," Roller said. "I burned all of our timeouts just to try and get back in the game and then we had none to give us a breather."
The Cards' never got closer then 12 after that run and with the 85-71 win Miami advanced to the semifinals on Friday. Ball State ends its season with a 13-16 record, which marks the first time since the 1998-99 season that the team finished with a losing record.
"We fought the whole time, Miami's just that good, they fought back even harder and we didn't have enough gas in the end," Goff said.
Miami's Colleen Day led the RedHawks with 23 points and 14 rebounds.
BSU finished with four players in double figures. Goff dropped a team high 21 points. Freshman Kelsey Corbin added another eight in the second half to finish with 16 and 11 assists for her first career double-double. Collins had 12 and senior Jessica Reiter had 10.
Reiter also had 11 rebounds, which makes her season total 299 and her career total 993. The 299 rebounds is a single-season record, and she finishes second on the school's all-time rebounding charts behind Emma Jones' 1,028.
"I've said so many times that probably the person we're going to miss the most is Jessica Reiter," Roller said. "Just because of her work ethic at practice and her blue-collar attitude and her go-to attitude."
Junior Kate Endress, the MAC's leading scorer, faced a Miami squad that was physical on her and shut her down. She scored only two points in each half and was 2-15 from the floor. She did however finish with the team high of 12 rebounds.
"They're a good team they went out and put a lot of pressure on me and made me take tough shots," Endress said. "Most of the time I can knock them down, but tonight it wasn't meant to be."
The game was the last for five seniors on the team, but the rest will be back next year hoping to have a winning season.
"I think there's only one place to go and that's up," Roller said. "Although it's been very short we're not used to this type of basketball and the tradition of our program is definitely deserving of a better year."
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