Buffalo Bulls Women’s Basketball sneaks by Eastern Michigan thanks to exceptional defense 56-52

Knowing they needed to get back to pouring on the defense to start winning more games, Buffalo Bulls Women’s Basketball did just that to 7-6 in MAC play. On a trip to Eastern Michigan, the Bulls played a full forty minutes of defense to beat the Eagles 56-52. This showing only assures the fact that if the Bulls hold a team under 60 points and win the rebounding battle, they’ll always win the game.

With their first quarter performance, Buffalo clearly came ready to play on defense and hope to generate offense from the stops they create. Seeing good minutes from Katherine Ups, Cassie Oursler, and Mariah Suchan at the start would help the Bulls pull out a 16-12 lead.

UB soon became the Theresa Onwuka show in the second quarter as she’d bring in eight of Buffalo’s ten points in the quarter. The freshman simply couldn’t be stopped and as the rest of UB’s offense went silent, the Bulls would’ve been in big trouble without her. Eastern Michigan closed the half on a 10-1 run to go up 28-26 with the next twenty minutes to go.

The third quarter was the Bulls’ most successful of the night, holding the Eagles to just 9 points within this span. Courtney Wilkins and Cassie Oursler had no problem putting the ball in the hoop as Wilkins showed off her three point range for the second game in a row. EMU kept right up with the Bulls and this wasn’t over yet with the score almost gridlocked at 42-37.

The final ten minutes saw UB’s floor general in Stephanie Reid carry the win home. Opening up the quarter with back-to-back layups, Reid did everything possible to make sure Buffalo was bringing a win back from Ypsi. UB lost the lead with 4:55 to go, but another Reid layup found its way into the basket and UB was able to run away with it from there.

Reid finished the night as the team’s top scorer. She had 14 points and her normal 8 assists (Did we ever mention she’s 7th in the nation at apg?). Theresa Onwuka did damage with her 12 points and 7 rebounds while Cassie Oursler rounded out the double digit scorers with 10.

Buffalo gets to stay in Alumni for a week and a half now for a three game home stand. the Bulls will face a bad Akron team this Saturday at 1:00 PM. The game will air on ESPN3.