{"id":78641,"date":"2023-03-11T23:25:14","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T03:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=78641"},"modified":"2023-03-13T11:14:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T15:14:39","slug":"powering-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_11_2023\/powering-champions","title":{"rendered":"Powering Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior guard\u00a0Quinesha Lockett\u00a0scored 17 points to lead the Toledo Rockets to a 73-58 victory over arch-rival Bowling Green in the MAC Championship finals at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland on Saturday.<\/p>\n

With the victory, Toledo (28-4) earns an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, the ninth tourney appearance in its history and first since 2017, which was also the last time Toledo won the MAC Tournament championship. It was the 16th\u00a0consecutive win for Toledo, whose last defeat was at Bowling Green on Jan. 18.<\/p>\n

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With the victory, Toledo (28-4) earns an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, the ninth tourney appearance in its history and first since 2017, which was also the last time Toledo won the MAC Tournament championship.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI was really proud of the effort of our players today, especially right out of the gate,\u201d said Head Coach Tricia Cullop, who is headed to the NCAAs for the second time in her career. \u201cWe have a lot of respect for Bowling Green, for their coaching staff and their players, and we knew it would take a valiant effort to beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lockett, who added five rebounds and six assists, was named the Tournament MVP. She totaled 44 points in three games in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Senior guard Sammi Mikonwicz and sophomore forward\u00a0Jessica Cook\u00a0joined Lockett on the All-Tournament Team.<\/p>\n

Cook added 16 points on 8-of-11 from the floor to go with seven rebounds vs. BGSU, while Mikonwicz added eight points and a game-high 16 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Toledo jumped out to a 12-0 lead and never trailed in the contest, though Bowling Green did narrow the margin to five points in the second half. But the Rockets exploded for 25 points in the fourth quarter to put the game away.<\/p>\n

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The Rockets celebrate their 73-58 victory over Bowling Green in the MAC Championship finals Saturday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOur players just didn\u2019t want to be denied,\u201d Cullop said. \u201cThey were locked in. I\u2019m just so happy for them. They\u2019ve never had a chance to experience this. The joy in my heart to see them experience something for the first time is unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was retribution of sorts for Toledo, which won the regular season title in each of the past two season but was eliminated in the semifinals last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I think that\u2019s what got us here today, not getting everything we wanted lats year,\u201d said senior guard Sofia Wiard. \u201cWe had a great season last year but we ended up in the WNIT, which was a great opportunity but it wasn\u2019t what we were looking for.<\/p>\n

“Every single day from that day forward we were hungry and we knew we wanted to get where we ended up today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toledo will find out its first-round opponent during the NCAA Selection Show on ESPN on Sunday at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

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Toledo will find out its first-round opponent during the NCAA Selection Show on ESPN on Sunday at 8 p.m.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

The Rockets defeated Bowling Green, 73-58, in the MAC Championship finals Saturday in Cleveland, claiming Toledo\u2019s ninth MAC Tournament title and first since 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":78642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[348,59,50,56,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78641"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78688,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78641\/revisions\/78688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}