YSU Women’s Basketball Splits Wisconsin Road Trip, Loses at Green Bay

The Youngstown State Penguins women’s basketball team (6-3, 1-1 Horizon) started solid and kept the Green Bay Phoenix (7-3, 2-0 Horizon) at bay in the early going, but Melissa Jackson’s squad eventually ran out of gas in a 56-47 on Sunday afternoon at the Kress Events Center.

Redshirt senior Jenna Guyer put Green Bay on the board by scoring the game’s first five points with a three-pointer and a layup, but YSU answered with a 7-0 run courtesy of back-to-back layups from redshirt freshmen Danielle Cameron and Sarah Baker, followed by a three-pointer from Florida Gulf Coast grad transfer Casey Santoro at the 7:32 point. After redshirt sophomore Meghan Schultz made free throws to tie the game at 7-7, sophomore Sophia Gregory nailed her first three-ball of the season to give YSU the 10-7 advantage with 6:55 remaining.

After Guyer split a pair of foul shots to make it a 10-8 deficit at the 4:25 mark, no points were scored for the next minute and 25 seconds until Youngstown State recorded their largest lead of the day at 15-8 with 2:29 to go, courtesy of a layup from sophomore Erica King and a three by fellow sophomore Hayden Barrier. Green Bay scored the next unanswered points to go down by two at 15-13 with a free throw by Schultz, a Guyer layup – which was the last bucket of the first quarter, and another layup from sophomore Gracie Grzesk to start the second quarter.

The Penguins were held scoreless for 3:46 until Gregory’s bucket ended that drought at the 8:42 mark and gave YSU a 17-13 lead. Later on in the period, Oakland transfer Maddy Skorupski hit a pair of foul shots for the 21-19 deficit at the 5:40 mark. Then, nobody scored for the next 3:02, until Schultz’s three-point play with 2:38 to go, which gave the Phoenix their first lead of the day at 22-21. Santoro nailed a bucket on YSU’s next offensive possession to give the red and black a one-point lead at 23-22, stopping a scoring drought that went four and a half minutes, but Schultz scored the last four points of the half with a layup and free throws to give the defending Horizon League Champions the 26-23 advantage at recess.

After that, Green Bay never relinquished the lead again and scored the second half’s first seven points to grow the lead to 10 at 33-23. It started with a bucket from South Dakota transfer Carley Duffney, another bucket from Schultz, and a three-point play from Skorupski. As a result, that turned into an 11-0 run for Kayla Karius’ squad.

YSU scored eight of the next 10 points as Gregory’s second three of the game put a stop to the run, while Santoro scored five straight points of her own later on in the period to make it a two-possession deficit at 35-31 at the 5:44 mark.

However, there was the Phoenix rising again, as they scored eight unanswered points and pushed their lead back to double-digits at 43-31 with 1:56 left in the third. It started with back-to-back layups from Schultz and Guyer, followed by a free throw from Guyer, and a Skorupski three. During Green Bay’s 8-0 run, they held Youngstown State without a point for 4:22 until the Penguins scored the final four points of the period to get within eight at 43-35, courtesy of a layup from King and made free throws from Cleveland State transfer Paulina Hernandez, which turned out to be the only time that YSU made it to the foul line.

Neither team scored a point in the fourth quarter until Grzesk made a pair of free throws 2:50 into the last stanza, making it 45-35. Grzesk and Santoro traded buckets, and Green Bay was still up by 10 at 50-40 at the 4:35 mark. Then, Baker and Schultz traded layups, which made it 52-42 Phoenix with 3:14 remaining. Green Bay put the cream cheese on the bagel with back-to-back buckets by Schultz and Grzesk before YSU scored the final five points of the day with a King three and a Barrier layup

Youngstown State shot 34.5 percent (19-of-55) from the field and 31.8 percent (7-of-22) on three-pointers. Santoro was the lone Penguin in double-figure scoring with 17 points (3/6 3-PT FG) to go along with seven rebounds.

Karius’ Green Bay team outrebounded Youngstown State 38-36 and made an outstanding 81.8 percent (13-of-16) of their free throws, but they made just 36.4 percent (20-of-55) of their overall shots and 17.6 percent (3-of-17) of their triples. Schultz led all scorers with 22 points (8/14 FG), her fourth 20-point game this season, along with eight boards and two steals. Guyer and Grzesk scored 11 points each, while Skorupski scored 10 points and had a pair of steals of her own. Kamy Peppler was scoreless in 38 minutes, but she still made an impact by pulling down seven rebounds and dishing out a game-high five assists.

Up next: Youngstown State will take an entire week off before hosting the Wright State Raiders on Tuesday, December 16 for a 6:30 PM ET tip-off inside the Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center.

James Moon (CashApp): $JRMoon1991