Kids don’t need to be asked twice to make a lot of noise.
Appropriately enough, during Thursday morning’s Health & Hoops Game at the Wolstein Center, the school-aged kids who came from places as far as North Ridgeville, and as near as the Campus International School a couple blocks away, screamed whenever arena emcee Ray Campbell told them to scream.
They screamed for Cleveland State’s dance team and cheerleaders before the contest started.
They screamed for a Rascal House-sponsored game of Musical Pizza Box at halftime.
They screamed when Turn Down For What, or Everybody Clap Your Hands, or any of a handful of other kid-approved songs played over the sound system.
They screamed for the third-quarter t-shirt toss, of course.
But more than anything else, the kids who made up the overwhelming majority of the crowd of 3,347 packed into the 32-year-old arena’s lower bowl screamed for the Vikings. And the Vikings responded by pulling away in the fourth quarter to hold off a tough Oakland team 78-63, a victory that improved CSU’s record to 22-4 (13-2 Horizon League).
Kids may not need to be asked twice to make a lot of noise, but sometimes they do need to be asked once, and Vikings head coach Chris Kielsmeier didn’t feel like his team had posed the question yet late in the third period. It was a fair opinion, given that CSU’s 12-point lead immediately after halftime had briefly been chopped down to just two, thanks mostly to a 9-0 Golden Grizzlies run. Shortly after that, Linda van Schaik, who led OU with 18 points, hit one of her four three-pointers at the buzzer to make the score 53-50, in favor of Cleveland State, with ten minutes to play.
“For the first time all year, in the [timeout with 2:46 left] in the third quarter, I told them that we’re getting outworked and we’re getting out-executed, and that’s not us, and that needs to change, now,” Kielsmeier said. “From that point on, I think the tape will show that there was probably a pretty significant difference with it.”
The scoreboard showed it too. After narrowly hanging on to their advantage thanks largely to a Sara Guerreiro and-one that finally cut off the Golden Grizzlies’ surge, CSU scored the first six points of the fourth quarter, much of it thanks to effort plays, to re-establish their separation.
“I think we just kind of stayed poised throughout,” guard Mickayla Perdue said. “I know they had a good third quarter, they outscored us and had 21 [points], and we kind of just had to figure out a way to stay focused and stay in the moment, and pull out the win.”
“We started the fourth quarter really well, that was important,” Kielsmeier added. “We settled in, got a couple big defensive stops, got a couple runouts there. That gave us a little bit more breathing room, which probably helped our players relax a little bit, and we just went to work. We played really well in that fourth quarter.”
Jordana Reisma, who had an excellent game with 15 points and ten rebounds, began the push by drawing a foul to Oakland post player Miriam Ibezim and hitting a free throw. Reisma missed her second try, but Carmen Villalobos outworked Ibezim for the rebound, an extra possession that ended with a Colbi Maples bucket and a six-point Vikings lead. Two straight defensive stops helped produce three more CSU points, the latter two arriving after a Reisma rebound was fed to Maples, who in turn hit Perdue running the floor for a layup.
A few minutes later, with Cleveland State ahead 64-56, Maples and Perdue combined for one of the game’s defining plays.
Maples, while looking to drive the paint, lost the ball to the Grizzlies’ Maddy Skorupski. Skorupski took off towards the CSU basket, but was beaten there by Maples, who forced a wild layup attempt that only made it about seven feet off the floor. Maples collected the loose ball, raced back the other way, and found Perdue stationed on the right wing, not far from where the original turnover occurred. Perdue, who finished with a game-high 27 points and another bullet point on her all-conference resume, stroked home one of her four three-pointers.
What easily could have been a six-point margin with four minutes to play instead transformed into an 11-point CSU lead, placing the Vikings squarely on the front foot for the rest of the matinee.
“You turn the ball over, you better get back, because the other team’s coming to go score,” Perdue said. “It just comes a lot from practice, and it’s just the players that we are, especially Colbi. Colbi’s not going to give up on a play, she’s not going to stop playing, she’s going to keep going. And then I’m there when she needs me to hit a shot.”
Those kids were there too, of course, impressing the home team with their knowledge and engagement level. They saved their loudest screams not for a Taylor Swift song, but for the high-leverage moments in the basketball game.
“It was a very smart crowd,” Kielsmeier said. “They really understood the Vikings and understood what we’re trying to accomplish. Some of those free throws down the stretch of the game, I can’t imagine the Wolstein being much louder, those kids were just energized.”
“During timeouts, I’m sitting there trying to get locked back in, I’m just hearing so many screams,” Perdue offered. “It was very exciting to play in front of all of them.”
Of course, it may have been even more exciting for the kids, as Perdue elaborated.
“I heard them calling my name during the game: ‘Mickayla! Micky! Micky!’ They done found my Instagram, they done found everything,” she said. “They said they done DMed me. It’s a good feeling to know that I have people looking up to me, and that I’m a good role model for people.”
“I had one little girl come up to me with literal tears in her eyes saying that this was one of the best days of her life. It was just a good experience and it was just very heartwarming to me.”
Was Perdue surprised by how the throng reacted to her? Not really.
“From what I know, and what I’ve seen from a lot of kids I’ve talked to here, Cleveland is a basketball city,” she said. “They love basketball here, especially with the Cavs and stuff like that.”
The Cavs? Sure. But don’t undersell Cleveland State’s role in that status, especially as the Vikings continue to rattle off wins and earn new fans.
