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Top seeded Toledo survived a slow start to pull away and defeat the 8th seeded Ohio Bobcats 80-67 in the opening game of the Women’s MAC Tournament today at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. Toledo was paced by Sophia Wiard and Quinesha Lockett with 19 each. Those two combined to go 11 of 15 from the charity stripe as they took advantage of their trips to the line.
Sammi Mikonowicz had 11 points while Khera Goss scored 10. They each had double digit point totals and saw some success from the three-point line. Goss and Mikonowicz combined to hit 4 three balls throughout the game. Toledo was fairly cold from beyond the arc, as they only went 7 of 20 on the night.
Where Toledo really pulled away and made the games theirs, was on the boards. The Rockets pulled down 34 boards while the Bobcats only captured 22. This mismatch would prove to make the difference.
The Bobcats also had some issues hitting shots from deep, only going 7 of 24 on the night. They were led by a pair of high scorers as Erica Johnson had a game high 25 while teammate Cierra Hooks lit it up for 23 of her own. The only other double digit scorer for Ohio was Gabby Burns with 13. The problem for Ohio was that only 5 of their players saw the scoresheet, with two of them only having 5 and 2 points.
The game was close early, as Toledo creeped out to a 18 -17 lead after 1. Ohio did an incredible job hanging around in the second quarter as well and only trailed 34-32 at the half. Toledo began to pull away just a bit in the third and increase the lead to 58-50 at one point late in the quarter, before the Bobcats got a three from Burris to cut it to 58-53 after three and keep them within upset range.
Any chance of an upset however was put away for good in the fourth as Lockett went off for 10 points. The Rockets proved while good foul shooting is the key to winning a championship at times as well as when the Bobcats went into foul mode, the Rockets made them pay. Toledo went 13 of 17 from the foul line in the fourth as they outscored the Bobcats 22-14 to put them away for good.
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