DeKALB — The women’s basketball team could not handle the red-hot shooting from Bowling Green State University as the team was blown out Wednesday night by a score of 81-52 in Bowling Green, Ohio.

The Huskies got off to a solid start on the offensive end as senior guard Janae Poisson made the first two baskets for the team, both of which were e-pointers. NIU’s biggest problems came on the defensive side, with Bowling Green shooting lights out from the 3-point line all night.

The Falcons made 5-of-6 threes in the first quarter alone, shooting for an astronomical 83% from behind the line. NIU’s lone lead in the game came off of Posissons’ first three-pointer. Following Poisson’s shots. The Huskies only scored nine points the rest of the quarter, trailing 25-16 at the end of first.

“Credit to Bowling Green, they came out and shot the heck out of it,” head coach Lisa Carlsen said in an interview with the Huskie Sports Radio Network. “I felt like we had some looks offensively that we needed to knock down to keep pace.”

The Huskies got more of the same results on the defensive side of the ball as they did in the first, but NIU’s offense simply could not keep up with the Falcons’. Bowling Green started the second quarter with a 14-0 run, making two three-pointers and multiple layups to extend their lead to 37-16. The Huskies would finally break their cold-streak with back-to-back layups by junior forward A’Jah Davis. The Falcons would respond with another Brett three-pointer to give them a 23 point lead with 3:38 left in the quarter.

NIU was able to outscore the Falcons by five points over the final three minutes of the half, cutting the lead to 45-27.

The Huskies were almost non-existent in the second half as they struggled to get anything going on the offensive side. NIU was held to just eight points in the entire third quarter as they came out of the half with little to no energy. While NIU struggled, the Falcons offense continued shooting a highly efficient 61% from the field and 60% from the line in the third quarter, scoring 19 points in the frame to give the BGSU a 64-36 lead into the fourth.

NIU bounced back well in the fourth quarter, scoring 17 points, but it was too little too late as the Falcons matched them with their own 17 points, with the final score being 81-52. The Falcons ended the game shooting 64% from the three-point line, making 14-for-22 overall in the game.

“We’ll struggle to find a lot of positives from today, but we have to have a short memory and get ready for the next one,” Carlsen said.

The Huskies were knocked down to ninth in the Mid-American Conference with the loss, moving their record to 9-12 overall, 6-7 in the conference. The Falcons jumped from eighth to fifth with their win, improving their record to 11-9 overall, 6-5 in the conference.

NIU returns to action at 1 p.m Saturday for a home matchup against the University at Buffalo Bulls in DeKalb. The game will be available on ESPN3.