The Youngstown State Penguins women’s basketball team (17-7, 10-4 Horizon) dominated from start to finish and never trailed throughout the night in their 79-48 win over the Milwaukee Panthers (8-17, 4-10 Horizon) on Thursday at Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center. It was also the Penguins’ annual Autism Awareness game in partnership with The Paula & Anthony Rich Center for Autism. For this special event, YSU wore special Autism-themed uniforms, with the puzzle pieces inside the numbers and the Penguins’ front logo.
Winners of four in a row, the Penguins shot 25 percent (5-of-20) in the first period and 39.1 percent (27-of-69) overall for the game while also making 38.2 percent (13-of-34) of their triples and an outstanding 92.3 percent (12-of-13) of their foul shots. They outrebounded the Panthers 45-42, scored 20 points off 13 Milwaukee turnovers, and dished out 23 assists as a unit while only turning the ball over seven times.
“I think a lot of it, just being confident,” Penguins head coach Melissa Jackson said after the game. “I thought we were passing up some shots when they [Milwaukee] went to the zone and trying to really figure it out, and their zone is different than Cleveland State, different than Detroit. They don’t match nearly as much, so they give you a lot up top. I think we figured it out. I think we stayed confident there. Really hit some big-time threes. I think our passing was much better in that fourth quarter. We put a premium on putting that ball in the shooter’s pocket. I think it makes a huge difference, and I thought our passes were on point. I absolutely love seeing the 23 assists and seven turnovers. I know we only had one at the half, coming out of halftime there. But when we’re really good offensively, that ball is moving, and it’s really getting in those shooters’ pockets.”
Casey Santoro and Erica King led all scorers with 17 points each, while King hit four bombs in nine tries. Santoro, who tied a career-high with five threes in 11 attempts, also eclipsed the 1,200 career-point mark and now has 1,203 points in her NCAA career. “I think just playing together, we knew we weren’t playing our best and having a lot of lapses defensively,” Santoro said. “But I think what makes our defense so good is we know we’re not doing good and we fixed it.”
Junior Paulina Hernandez finished with 16 points off the bench, which was a field goal shy of tying her career-high. “I know that our coaches got on us, and we weren’t playing our best,” she stated. “Like Casey [Santoro] said, we’re mature, and we know what we’re doing, and we try to fix it, which we did.”
Sarah Baker added a dozen points, while Sophia Gregory just missed a double-double with nine points and 14 rebounds to go along with a game-high six assists. Danielle Cameron also scored eight points of her own.
Milwaukee shot just 27.3 percent (18-of-66) overall from the field, 24 percent (6-of-24) from downtown, and 75 percent (6-of-8) at the free throw line. Freshman Cece McNair was the lone Panther who scored in double figures with 11 points off the bench. Grace Lomen finished with nine points and eight rebounds, while Jorey Buwalda – the Horizon League’s leading rebounder – finished a field goal shy of a double-double with eight points and 13 rebounds.
Both teams struggled from the field and couldn’t even buy a shot to start the game, with a total of 11 shots missed within a 3:35 span between the two squads. Santoro hit a three at the 8:16 mark before Milwaukee’s Jada Williams answered with a triple of her own with 5:52 remaining. Then, YSU answered with a 12-0 run over the next 3:18 to go up 15-3. Baker kicked off the massive run by scoring the first five points with an old-fashioned three-point play and a two-point jumper before Hernandez scored the next seven straight points by herself with a three-pointer, a three-point play, and a foul shot. Milwaukee’s Madison Fitzgibbon scored the last bucket of the period with seven seconds to go to make it a 15-8 deficit.
Gregory recorded a three-point play just 51 seconds into the second quarter before Buwalda countered with a layup 18 seconds later to make it an 18-10 deficit. YSU then went on a 12-5 run in a 2:26 span. It started when King knocked down a three before McNair answered with a jumper to cut the deficit down to single digits at 21-12. After Cameron and Fitzgibbon traded threes, YSU hit back-to-back bombs with Hernandez and King to boost the Penguin lead to 30-15 at the 4:43 point of the second quarter.
Following a basket by McNair, YSU went on its second 7-0 run of the game, with Baker scoring five straight points on a three-point play and a baseline shot before Santoro’s layup with 2:01 remaining gave YSU a 20-point cushion at 37-17. Lomen closed out the first half scoring on a three-pointer with 54 seconds to go, but YSU outscored Milwaukee 22-12 in the second stanza.
The Panthers carried Lomen’s second-quarter three over to the second half and turned it into another 8-0 run thanks to a three from Williams and free throws from Buwalda, which cut the deficit down to 12 at 37-25 at the 8:48 mark. Following a Santoro triple, the Panthers scored the next five points with a jumper from Lomen and a three from Payton Rechlicz – the daughter of Milwaukee head coach Kyle Rechlicz – to come within 10 at 40-30 with 6:05 left in the third quarter.
However, the Penguins waddled back up by putting in the next five points with a Hernandez layup and King’s third three-pointer of the night, which grew the YSU lead back to 15 at 45-30 with 4:45 to go in the third stanza. Buwalda and Gregory traded baskets before Milwaukee trimmed YSU’s advantage down to 11 at 47-36 with back-to-back layups from Lomen and McNair with 25 seconds remaining in the third period, but the Panthers never got any closer than that. King then got fouled by Kendall Barnes on a three-point attempt and hit all three free throws before McNair made a layup to make it 50-38 two seconds before the third-quarter buzzer sounded.
The Penguins began the fourth quarter with a bang by scoring 21 of the first 25 points of the period and making buckets on their first seven possessions of regulation. Santoro, just 44 seconds into the final period, knocked down back-to-back threes to make it 56-38.
After a layup from Barnes, the Penguins ran away with the game after going on a 10-0 run in a span of just two minutes to push the lead to 66-40 at the 6:48 mark. It began with both a three and a layup from Cameron, followed by Santoro’s third three-ball of the quarter and a Gregory layup.
Following a bucket from Buwalda, YSU’s lead reached 32 at 74-42 on an 8-0 run thanks to a Baker layup, free throws from Gregory, and four straight points from Hernandez at the 2:51 mark. Following a three-point play from McNair, King scored five of the next six points to give YSU their largest lead of the game at 79-46 with 32 seconds left. Then, Milwaukee’s Izzy Pugh hit a pair of free throws to close out the scoring.
Note: YSU sophomore guard Hayden Barrier, one of the team’s key reserves, sat out on Thursday due to a head injury she suffered in last Saturday afternoon’s win at Oakland. “We hope to get her back soon,” Jackson stated regarding Barrier’s recovery status. “She’s doing well, concussion protocol. But hope to get her back relatively soon.”
Up next: Youngstown State, who stands alone in second place in the Horizon League, will host first-place team Green Bay on Saturday afternoon for a 2 p.m. tip-off inside Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center. It will be YSU’s annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day game.
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