In one of those feel-good “everyone plays and everyone contributes” outings that happen once or twice per season, Cleveland State returned to the Wolstein Center on Wednesday night to demolish Division II squad Pitt-Johnstown 97-24.
Here are five things that stood out, as CSU improved to 3-0.
1. Often, much is made of extensive travel, as the Vikings experienced playing at Cal State Fullerton on Sunday. Less considered, most of the time, is the trip home, which presents the very same distance in an airplane seat and time zone shift, just in the opposite direction.
Adding additional complexity was the fact that Fullerton needed to push the game back from its originally-scheduled Saturday time, thanks to a conflict with the Titans’ women’s volleyball team, which shares Titan Gym. That meant that CSU had to play a home game just 72 hours after winning on the west coast.
It isn’t an ideal situation. In some sense, it’s almost like playing a home game on the road. So how did the Vikings handle things? Mostly, with a shrug.
Hanna Medina Kajevic is certainly used to air travel, given that she’s from Sweden and attends college in the United States. A trip that doesn’t even cross an ocean? That’s nothing.
“It was good,” the freshman said. “We got to rest [Monday] and then we got practice the day after, but it was good.”
Head coach Chris Kielsmeier admitted that jet lag hit him a little bit harder – he re-developed a cold, and was generally a mess on Monday, causing him to appear on his weekly radio show remotely – but admired the way that everyone managed to jump right back into their routines after landing in Cleveland.
“Look how [Kajevic] just answered that question,” he said. “This is what’s got to be done, so let’s go do it. Guess it’s a little bit easier to do that when you’re 20, but that was our coaching staff’s approach too. We dug in and we all worked on Monday even though we weren’t in the office. I’m proud of our players, I’m proud of our coaches.”
Cleveland State isn’t done with travel, obviously, but nothing remaining on the Vikings’ schedule involves more than a one-hour time shift. The only flight outside of the midwest, to San Juan next month, is buffered by plenty of downtime.
2. As tempting as it might be to write off Pitt-Johnstown as a lower-division speed bump, Division II opponents have often proven less than routine for the Vikings. Both Edinboro and Findlay provided fair amounts of pushback in exhibition games to begin each of the last two seasons. Last November, despite a final margin of 42 points, Ohio Dominican stayed within shouting distance of CSU until the second half.
With that in mind, the sort of from-the-tip, wire-to-wire domination Cleveland State flexed on UPJ was a welcome departure from that occasional trend.
However, Kielsmeier didn’t consider it a perfect effort.
“Our defense did some really good things tonight, but we’re still not getting in the right spots,” he said. “Our positioning is off, and we’re squeezing too much on the high post. Our guards aren’t getting enough pressure getting up in the three ball shots. So again, there’s always things to get better with.”
UPJ shot just 8-for-48 (16.7 percent) from the field for the game, but it’s probably fair to call at least some of that putrid statistic self-inflicted, as opposed to a product of Vikings dominance. One comical fourth quarter moment involved the Mountain Cats’ Camille Dominick missing an open five-footer to round out an 0-for-6 night, then bellowing a frustrated “oh my God” that reached most of the 312 fans in attendance.
“We left so many points out there,” Kielsmeier said. “We also gave up opportunities for them to hit a lot more shots than what the scoreboard actually showed. So we know we’re very much still a work-in-progress team, and there’s so many things to improve on, but we’re getting better.”
On the other side of things, all 13 available CSU players (Queen Ruffin remains sidelined with a lower-body injury) were in the game before the end of the first half, and most of the last 20 minutes were devoted to trying to get each of them at least two points, a goal that went unfulfilled. Regardless, the two who didn’t score, Macey Fegan and Sur Lozano, still found their way on to the stat sheet through rebounds, assists, and blocked shots.
3. One of CSU’s pleasant early-season surprises has been Paula Pique, who made her first start for the Vikings on Wednesday.
The Abilene Christian transfer enjoyed something of a signature moment against Cal State Fullerton, with back-to-back threes in the final two minutes, shots that transformed a three-point deficit into a three-point advantage.
Really, though, that was just the icing on a superb all-around performance that included ten points, ten rebounds, six assists, and three steals. Across the season’s three games, Pique has averaged 8.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.7 steals per game, despite a somewhat abbreviated effort against Pitt-Johnstown.
“Her upside on both ends of the floor is huge,” Kielsmeier said. “That stat line that she had on Sunday, that was special. A lot of players never have a stat line like that to sort of do it one time shows her potential, how much upside she’s got.”
It’s probably an unfair comparison at this stage, but it’s hard not to see a little bit of Sara Guerreiro in Pique. Both are high-effort triple-double threats who play the same positions, and also happen to be from the Iberian Peninsula.
The only thing missing at this stage? A bit of offensive consistency.
“I think she’s struggling to settle in offensively how I want her,” Kielsmeier said. “We’re trying to get the ball in her hands and get her to be more of a playmaker, and she’s just off with it a little bit. There’s a lot of film that we can show her and help her with it, but she’s just another player that wants to get better and wants to be coached hard.”
4. Kajevic also made a deep imprint on the proceedings. Notably, she has participated in all three of Cleveland State’s games so far – a significant stat for any freshman, given the obvious eligibility ramifications.
However, the outing against the Mountain Cats was her most extensive work to date, including five points, four assists, and three rebounds in 22 minutes, primarily while playing point guard. Her first two tallies came after a quick and aggressive drive to the bucket, and just before the first half buzzer, she did well to locate Shay Magassa underneath for an assist.
Kajevic plays with pace, draws fouls, knows how to find the center, and can knock down shots. In other words, she does most of what Cleveland State asks of its point guards very well.
There were a couple of rookie mistakes, of course, and Kajevic was particularly bothered by missing all four of her free throw attempts.
“I thought it went pretty good, but I need to shoot free throws after this, because I can’t miss them,” she said. I think sometimes I need to find assists more, they were wide open because they were crowding [me] when I went down the court.”
Nevertheless, Kajevic’s chemistry with Magassa helped the LaSalle transfer to 17 points, and a smooth rhythm three in the fourth quarter rounded out her own scoring total.
“I think tonight’s game should give this one a lot of confidence because of how she played,” Kielsmeier said, while gesturing towards his freshman.
Kajevic’s seemingly-pessimistic answer after what most probably saw as a feel-good effort? Apparently, that’s par for the course.
“She’s already picking her game apart and trying to figure out ways to get better right now,” Kielsmeier said. “And again, that’s all you want from your players. Just for them to put their best foot forward, want to put the work in, and want to get better because we’ve all got things to get better with. I’ve made mistakes in these games, and I’ve got to coach better. Very mature response right there.”
It probably goes without saying that as the Vikings continue to patch together rotations around Ruffin’s injury, the emergence of Kajevic as a capable second point guard could be massive.
5. The game was never much of one, and though that context should temper any conclusions related to Wednesday’s events, there is an extremely open-ended question worth asking: who or what stood out to Kielsmeier during what ultimately became a glorified practice session? After all, when everyone plays, and the final result is a foregone conclusion, it’s a great opportunity to test drive situations, lineups, and individuals.
Nevertheless, Kielsmeier jumped straight to a familiar refrain, his post players. The coach lamented the Vikings’ inability to feed Izabella Zingaro during an otherwise-productive effort at CSUF, but felt things improved on Wednesday.
“The flow and the continuity on both ends of the floor is coming,” he said. “It’s there. Our inside game got going tonight. We got that ball through the high post and our fives, whoever we were putting on the block, played really well.”
Zingaro led those efforts with a game-high 18 points, on 5-for-7 shooting from the floor and an 8-for-9 night at the free throw line – all in just 10:27 of game time.
“For Izzi to have 18 points in 10 minutes, I mean that’s almost unheard of,” Kielsmeier marveled. “How do you even get that many shots to have that many points in that short amount of time?”
Laurel Rockwood was solid as well, including five rebounds and four points on three shot attempts. Magassa played most of the second half at the five, and by garbage time, even Madison Royal-Davis took a turn at the position, rounding out a 12-point, 13-rebound double-double.
