The Youngstown State Penguins women’s basketball team (14-6, 9-4 Horizon) completed the Michigan road sweep with a 72-60 win on Saturday afternoon at OU Credit Union O’rena in Rochester, MI over an Oakland Golden Grizzlies team (8-14, 5-7 Horizon) that came in winning four of their last five games.
It was Oakland’s day to honor both National Girls and Women in Sports Day and Camper Day, but it was the Penguins’ third straight victory that gave head coach Melissa Jackson her 100th career win. She recorded 72 wins in her five seasons at Akron (2018-23) and her 28th with Youngstown State on Saturday in just her second season with the program after taking over in 2024.
“We’re a really gritty bunch,” Jackson said about her Penguin squad after the game. “Didn’t play our best basketball that first half, but made some adjustments at halftime. But really, we just started to play harder and smarter. I thought Hayden [Barrier] came in and gave us a spark, and we needed to finish the game the right way. Got all those 50-50 balls, all those rebounds in the second half, and it was because of her spark that really fueled us to this win.”
Sophia Gregory led YSU in scoring with 15 points on 7-of-13 shooting. Casey Santoro played all 40 minutes for the fourth time this season, scoring 14 points while also recording eight rebounds and six assists. 12 points for Erica King and 11 points for Sarah Baker.
The Penguins won both the rebounding and points in the paint battles by the exact same margin of 32-30. They shot 83.3 percent (10-of-12) in the final 10 minutes and 53.1 percent (25-of-47) for the whole game while also making 38.9 percent (7-of-18) of their threes and 71.4 percent (15-of-21) at the foul line.
Keisha Newell’s Oakland team made 37.3 percent (22-of-59) of their overall shots, 29.2 percent (7-of-24) of their three-balls, and 64.3 percent (9-of-14) of their free throws. Super freshman Mackenzie Luehring led the Golden Grizzlies with a game-high 20 points, while Valparaiso transfer Layla Gold had 18 points of her own.
Oakland’s Angie Smith scored the first bucket of the day within 46 seconds before Baker answered with a jumper of her own 56 seconds after that. Gold then drilled back-to-back three-pointers to give the Golden Grizzlies an 8-2 lead, and their advantage ended up increasing to nine at 17-8 after Gold’s old-fashioned three-point play at the 2:51 mark of the opening quarter. YSU turned the ball over five times and trailed 19-12 through the first 10 minutes.
In the second quarter, the Golden Grizzlies led by 10 twice after a 7-2 run within a 2:13 span. It started with five unanswered points courtesy of three made free throws, one from Filippa Goula and two from Lianna Baxter, followed by a layup from Luehring with 2:46 remaining to make it 32-22. Then Santoro and Gold traded layups to maintain Oakland’s double-digit advantage at 34-24 at the 2:11 mark.
YSU then scored five unanswered points of their own with a Gregory bucket and three straight points from Santoro to cut the deficit down to five with 43 seconds left, but Smith answered back with a bucket of her own and Luehring was a couple tenths of a second late in nailing a half-court prayer that would have put the home team up by 10 at intermission. Ironically, both teams ended up scoring 17 points each in the second quarter.
With Youngstown State down 36-29 after the first 20 minutes, Santoro started the second half with a pair of free throws before Baxter’s jumper at the 8:44 mark made it 38-31. The Penguins then went on a 6-2 run and shot 4-of-6 at the line in that span to make it a one-possession deficit at 40-37 with 6:13 to go.
Oakland was held without a field goal for 3:50 until Smith’s layup ended the drought, but a three-pointer from Hayden Barrier at the 4:45 mark and one made free throw from Santoro with 4:11 to go cut the Golden Grizzlies’ lead down to just one at 42-41.
Gold would finish the fastbreak with a layup exactly three minutes later, but King scored the next five unanswered points with a pair of foul shots and a go-ahead three to give YSU its first lead of the day at 46-44 with 20 seconds left.
However, Jasmine Dupree-Hebert hit a three – Oakland’s lone triple of the second half – at the buzzer to put Oakland back on top 47-46 after three quarters of play.
Luehring started the fourth quarter by scoring on Oakland’s first possession just 21 seconds in, but YSU got hot and scored on five straight possessions during an 11-0 run courtesy of back-to-back layups from Gregory, a three-point play by King, and consecutive baskets from Gregory and Baker at the 6:49 mark to go up 57-49.
Baxter then cut Oakland’s deficit to two possessions with a layup, but Danielle Cameron answered with a three to increase the Penguins’ lead to nine at 60-51 with 6:09 to go. Oakland countered with four straight points with a three-point play from Luehring and a free throw from Gold before King hit a three at the 4:45 mark to make it 63-55.
Luehring then made a layup on a fastbreak to cut the deficit to two possessions, but the Penguins waddled back with a 5-0 run and increased their lead to 11 at 68-57 with four straight points from Santoro and a foul shot from Gregory at the 1:56 mark. After Gold split a pair of free throws, YSU recorded their largest advantage of the day at 14 on back-to-back buckets from Santoro and Baker to make it 72-58. Then Dupree-Hebert made a layup for Oakland to close out the scoring.
Note: Oakland had the lead for 28 out of the 40 minutes.
Up next: Youngstown State will kick off the month of February with a three-game homestand on Thursday evening against Milwaukee at 6:30 p.m. inside Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center. The team will wear specially designed jerseys as part of Autism Awareness Night.
Like James Moon’s work? Support his work via CashApp: $JRMoon91
Enjoyed this article? Help keep HoriZone Roundtable going.
👉 Donate here: https://horizoneroundtable.com/donate
👉 Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/horizoneroundtable
Subscribe to our emails, and get our latest posts in your inbox, plus a weekly digest of everything we've published!
