On Sunday afternoon inside Zidian Family Arena at the Beeghly Center, homestanding Youngstown State walloped Cleveland State 61-38, dropping the Vikings to 15-7 overall and 5-6 in Horizon League play.
Here’s what stood out from CSU’s third consecutive loss to the Penguins:
1. The game was played right as the belly of Winter Storm Fern rumbled through the Mahoning Valley, carrying what most projections estimated as roughly 12 inches of snow, all falling within 18 hours.
Though Youngstown State urged fans to stay home and avoid the treacherous road conditions outside, an official attendance of 30 still made it into the gym (unofficially, it was probably about half of that number). That situation took the edge off of what’s typically one of the HL’s toughest home court advantages. With virtually no fans in attendance, the proceedings almost had the feel of a COVID-era empty arena, with participants required to provide their own energy.
It was a bit odd that the contest went off at all, given that most college basketball games scheduled during Fern’s peak were either postponed or shifted a day earlier. Within the Horizon League, that latter category included Robert Morris’ trip to Wright State, originally slated opposite CSU-YSU, but instead bumped ahead to Saturday. The only men’s matchup initially set for Sunday, IU Indianapolis hosting rival Purdue Fort Wayne, was delayed indefinitely.
That was never close to happening in Youngstown, though. Chris Kielsmeier said after the fact that the home team – which is responsible for initiating scheduling conversations – never reached out about moving the tip time.
2. Thanks to her brief stint as a Kielsmeier assistant during the 2023-24 season, Youngstown State coach Melissa Jackson is intimately familiar with the Vikings’ systems and perhaps as well equipped as anyone to beat them.
She certainly has done that, as Sunday’s result was her third win in four tries against her former team, since taking the YSU job prior to last year.
However, beyond coming up with a couple new plays to generate some open looks, nothing the Penguins did to Cleveland State was exceptional. It was just executed exceptionally well.
Early on, that meant softening up CSU’s zone with a barrage of threes. Danielle Cameron provided most of the ammo though a 3-for-5 effort from deep in the opening quarter, including back-to-back triples midway through the period that gave the Penguins the lead for good.
In all, the redshirt freshman from Olmsted Falls, OH scored a game-high 17 points, most of them on five deep balls.
“We knew that they play the zone as kind of the staple of their program,” Cameron explained. “They’re good at it. They usually can disrupt a lot of things that we do. So we put in a couple plays, and everybody is confident in anyone to knock down a shot. So we executed those new plays very well.”
“I can put the play in, but the players have got to execute it and make the right pass,” Jackson added, deflecting credit back to her squad. “Everybody was on the same page, and kudos to Dani for hitting those threes early on.”
Casey Santoro offered two more triples in five tries, most of the rest of YSU’s team-wide 9-for-27 line from behind the arc.
“This is back-to-back games where we didn’t come out and play very well in the first quarter,” Kielsmeier said, alluding to his team’s slow start at Purdue Fort Wayne on Wednesday. “We aren’t responding to runs at us, and we’ve got to show a better ability to be able to make some changes and adjust some things.”
“But it’s not like we didn’t talk about [Santoro] and [Cameron] being electric from the outside, and we let ’em go out and hit seven threes. You just can’t do that in games like this.”
Once that deep threat was established, the inside sledding became significantly easier for the likes of Sarah Baker (12 points, three assists) and Sophia Gregory (nine points, ten rebounds, six assists).
3. Of course, nothing Youngstown State did offensively should be the day’s leading story, not when the Penguins’ defense held CSU under 40 points for the first time since Green Bay did so at the end of the 2018-19 season.
Contributing to that bottom-line number, the Vikings shot just 29.2 percent for the game, turned the ball over 23 times, scored all of two fast-break points, and didn’t make a single trip to the free throw line until the second half (the latter two categories being among the program’s chief objectives, of course). With 3:24 left in the first quarter, YSU began a 25-2 run that didn’t end until the third-quarter clock read 7:48, which took the game from a tight 16-13 score, all the way to a 41-15 laugher.
As on the other side of the ball, it was simply a matter of stellar execution by the Guins.
Job one was taking away Izabella Zingaro, called “one of the best post players in this league” by Jackson.
The task was primarily accomplished by Gregory, along with some help from former Viking Paulina Hernandez. Gregory and Hernandez each blocked three shots, with four of those combined six swats coming on Zingaro attempts. The CSU center also turned the ball over four times, while countless other giveaways resulted from misfired entry passes, as the visitors tried in vain to work around the Penguins fronting the post.
“I think we know how to defend them,” Jackson said. “I think that’s the biggest key. And we did some even adjustments today. We put Sophia on Izzi, and her athleticism and size was the right call there. We’re always going to front them and have great help-side [defense] and force them to move the ball and make some passes that I don’t think they, they’re accustomed to making.”
The YSU coach was probably on to something in that regard. Cleveland State was generally unable to find any sort of offensive counterpoint, something to make the Penguins reconsider their priorities. Only two Vikings – Zingaro and Jada Leonard – hit more than one field goal or scored more than three points.
“It’s been an issue really for the last few weeks, of just kind of locking into [Zingaro] and just feeling like we have to get it in there at all costs,” Kielsmeier confirmed. “We have to find the open person, and there’s people that are open out there and we’re not finding them. Drive-and-kick is not happening, and those are things that we talk and work on a lot.”
Of course, even if CSU had been able to get the ball back outside, it’s debatable how much success they would have found. Jackson repeatedly praised guard Erica King for her work in defending Colbi Maples. The Vikings point guard was limited to 1-for-11 shooting and just three points.
“I think our kids have a lot of confidence now playing Cleveland State, and you can do a lot with confidence nowadays,” Jackson said.
4. While Maples, Zingaro, and just about everyone else wearing green struggled on Sunday, Leonard did provide the closest thing CSU had to a bright spot.
She scored a team-best 14 points, much of that coming through the sort of dribble penetration that the Vikings have lacked for a lot of the year. The former Saint Peter’s and Bryant guard has noticeably taken on increased ballhandling duties since Maples sprained her ankle in Cleveland State’s win over College of Charleston last month, and it seems to be paying off with an increased comfort level.
Understandably, Kielsmeier wasn’t in the mood to heap effusive praise on any of his players, though he did cite Leonard as someone essential to changing the trajectory of a season that’s suddenly gone a bit sour.
“She’s still learning,” he said. “She hasn’t played a lot in the system, but Jada’s got big-time game, and can have a big night any given night, and we certainly need a lot of them moving forward.”
Leonard has now edged past Maples to become the team’s second-leading scorer, behind Zingaro, with 13.5 points per game, though she’s now improved that average in five of her last six games. That output is complemented, of course, by her 2.9 steals per game, a number that remains among the conference and national leaders.
5. The defeat dropped Cleveland State to sixth place in the Horizon League, with teams like IU Indianapolis and Oakland nipping at the Vikings’ heels. In fact, CSU is just as close to ninth-place Milwaukee as it is to the three-way tie between YSU, Robert Morris, and Purdue Fort Wayne that presently occupies the second, third, and fourth positions.
That situation leads to some pretty uncomfortable questions about the team’s potential to salvage a good season. The notion of hosting a second-round game in the conference tournament is now very much in jeopardy and, given the Vikings’ 2-6 record in true road games, Cleveland State making a seventh straight trip to Indianapolis for the HL finals seems strongly tied to the outcome of that chase. The idea of participating in a postseason tournament for a sixth straight year, absent a league tournament title, is fading as well.
However, Kielsmeier isn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.
“There’s a lot of basketball left, and a lot of reason to still play, and a lot to play for,” he said. “It’s all still out there. We just got to find a way to get better.”
That may be true, though with only nine games remaining in the regular season, the safety net has just about evaporated.
Donate: horizoneroundtable.com/donate
Patreon: patreon.com/horizoneroundtable
Subscribe to our emails, and get our latest posts in your inbox, plus a weekly digest of everything we've published!
