Women make poor showing in 76-48 defeat to Green Bay
The Penguins dropped to 6-10 overall and 3-3 in the conference.
VINDICATOR STAFF REPORT
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The Youngstown State women's basketball team continued its up-and-down season on the down side Monday.
The Penguins ran up against a hot-shooting University of Wisconsin-Green Bay team and suffered a 76-48 trouncing at the Phoenix Sports Complex.
Just last week, in their last outing, the Penguins beat a good Illinois-Chicago team 64-56, but they were nothing close to that performance against the Phoenix.
Green Bay is the current co-leader in the Horizon League with a perfect 7-0 record and the Phoenix are 13-5 overall. YSU fell to 6-10 overall and 3-3 in the Horizon.
Never in game: Youngstown State was never in the game after the first few minutes as Green Bay connected on 58.6 percent of its shots in the first 20 minutes and made seven 3-point goals to pull to a 43-23 halftime lead. The Penguins never came anywhere near a comeback after that.
"They [Green Bay] shot the ball extremely well," said YSU coach Ed DiGregorio. "We had several open looks but couldn't convert on any of them.
"I don't think that we were ready to play tonight," he added. "It was just the same problem that we've had all season, we just don't play 40 minutes of basketball."
YSU finished with just one player in double figures as senior Jen Horner scored 11 points and pulled down eight rebounds. Freshman Jen Perugini added nine points and also had eight rebounds.
The Penguins shot just 30.6 percent from the field, making 19 of 62 shots and were just 23.8 percent from 3-point range hitting just 5-of-21.
The Phoenix, on the other hand, were 27-of-51 for 52.9 percent from the field and 9-of-18 from behind the arc. Green Bay also won the rebounding 37-34.
Sarah Boyer led the Phoenix in scoring with 19 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field and that included 3-of-4 from 3-point range. The Phoenix also played without one of their starters, 5-foot-8 senior Amanda Leonhard, who was averaging nearly 10 points. She had a sprained ankle.
The Penguins led only once in the contest and that came at the 16:37 mark of the first half when freshman Barbora Fabianova hit a 3-point shot.
No catching up: Green Bay took the lead for good, 15-13, at the 12:12 mark. The Phoenix then went on a 13-5 run before Perugini cut the margin to seven with a 3-point goal at 28-21.
Then the wheels fell off for the Penguins as Green Bay closed out the half with a 15-2 run and took a 43-23 halftime lead.
YSU didn't score another basket until there was 13:30 remaining in the game when Horner hit a 3-pointer. The Phoenix pulled to their biggest lead of 37 points, 67-30, with 10:07 remaining, but, by then, DiGregorio had already emptied his bench.
The Penguins return home for a four-game stretch beginning Thursday night when they play host to Wright State at 7. They will also be at home Saturday night at 7 against Loyola of Chicago.