The Youngstown State Penguins women’s basketball team (3-1) kicked off both halves with great starts and never trailed in a tough 60-53 win over the Bucknell Bison (1-3) on Sunday afternoon at Zidian Family Arena at the Beeghly Center.
Youngstown State got off to a hot start by scoring on their first four possessions of the day en route to an early 9-2 lead, with Sarah Baker hitting a turnaround shot to start it off. After a made bucket from Bucknell sophomore Elana Weisman, an Erica King layup and a Danielle Cameron three-pointer forced Bison head coach Trevor Woodruff to call a 30-second timeout. Following a Bucknell foul from another sophomore in Reese Zemitis, another layup by Sophia Gregory gave YSU the seven-point advantage with 7:10 left in the first quarter. Bucknell then went on to score seven unanswered points to tie the game at nine apiece with a three from sophomore Isabella Casey and back-to-back buckets from Weisman, but a layup from King calmed down the stampede and ended a 6:27 scoring drought to give YSU the 11-9 lead at the end of the quarter. In the first period alone, YSU forced five Bucknell turnovers, while King recorded three steals.
The Penguins were 1-of-7 to start the second quarter, and Hayden Barrier hit her first triple of the day to make it 15-11 YSU with 6:31 to go, but the Bison’s Tuana Coskun – a junior from Turkey – nailed consecutive shots to knot it up at 15 all at the 4:55 mark. However, Youngstown State answered with another 7-0 run to go up 22-15 lead with 1:40 remaining, which started with a pair of free throws from Casey Santoro, followed a three-point play from Baker and more made free throws from Faith Burch to cap off the run.
Bucknell got a three-pointer from junior Anna Kunzwiler and a layup from Zemitis to make it a one-possession deficit at 22-20 with 43 seconds before recess, but Barrier drilled her second triple of the quarter to give the Penguins the 25-20 lead at the intermission.
YSU scored 15 of the first 20 points of the third stanza by making their first four shot attempts and went 5-of-7 in that span. It started with a driving layup from King and free throws by Baker for a nine-point advantage at 29-20 at the 8:46 point. Following a scoop shot by Baker, Casey countered back with a three before YSU went on their third 7-0 run of the day. It started with consecutive drives to the tin by King, followed by Barrier’s third three-pointer of the game and a pair of makes at the charity stripe from Santoro to make it 40-25 Penguins with 3:18 remaining in the period. Bucknell scored the next six unanswered points with a pair of free throws from freshman Kaila Richards, another foul shot from Coskun, and a three from freshman Ella Kreuzer to cut the deficit to single digits at 40-31 at the 2:12 mark. Burch then split a pair of free throws to extend the lead back to double-digits before Santoro drilled her lone trey of the afternoon to close out the third quarter and extend YSU’s lead to 13 at 44-31.
To start the fourth and final period, Youngstown State scored six of the quarter’s first eight points with a three-ball by Paulina Hernandez and a three-point play by King as YSU built a 17-point lead at 50-33 with 8:24 remaining. However, Bucknell fought back and scored 11 unanswered points to trail 50-44 with 5:46 left courtesy of back-to-back layups from Kunzwiler, a three and a layup from Weisman, and another layup from Zemitis.
Cameron then nailed her second three-pointer of the day and stopped the bleeding to make it a 53-44 cushion with 4:02 to go. Later on, she smacked her third trey of the game with 1:33 left, giving the Penguins a 60-49 lead and putting the cream cheese on the bagel.
King led the Penguins with a nice well-rounded performance of 14 points (6-of-10 FG), four rebounds, two assists and three steals. “I think I was just more aggressive today, and I was like ‘I’m getting to the basket,'” she said after the game. “I changed my mentality a little, and that’s really what helped push me, and I hoped it help my team get there.”
Barrier scored a career-high 11 points off the bench, with nine points each from Cameron and Baker, and four points and 10 rebounds for Gregory. YSU was held to only 33.9 percent (20-of-59) shooting from the field and 28.6 percent (8-of-28) from beyond the arc, but they made a solid 75 percent (12-of-16) of their free throws and outrebounded the Bison 42-29.
“Bucknell’s a tough defensive-oriented team,” Penguins head coach Melissa Jackson said about Bucknell’s defensive efforts. “They have great helpside, they’re tough to iso. We were able to get them moving a little bit, but we’ll go back and watch the film. They did double in the post, so we knew we were gonna have a lot of outside shots. I thought we got a little three happy, took a couple quick threes. Made the adjustment at halftime to attack some of those long close outs, and I thought our kids did a much better job of that.”
Bucknell only made 39.6 percent (19-of-48) of their overall shots and 26.3 percent (5-of-19) of their threes, but they did well at the foul line at 76.9 percent (10-of-13). Weisman was the only Bison player who scored in double figures with a career-high 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting, with nine points and seven boards coming from Kunzwiler.
“We needed to do it defensively, and we kinda knew that coming into the game,” Jackson said regarding her team’s gameplan. “Really, really happy with our start. That was a big point of emphasis for us, we had not started games very well, and then our start coming out at half, too. Very proud of those starters. That’s a huge responsibility of those guys, and they handled that really well.”
Up next: Youngstown State will head back out on the road to visit Northeast Conference opponent Mercyhurst Lakers on Thursday, November 20 for a 6:00PM ET tip-off at the Mercyhurst Athletic Center in Erie, PA.
James Moon (CashApp): $JRMoon91
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