Women’s loss full of miscues

By Pete Mollica

The Penguins had 29 turnovers in their 37-point loss to Kent, which had five players in double figures.

KENT — Youngstown State women’s coach Cindy Martin knows her team is not going to win a lot of games with its shooting. The Penguins must play good defense and not turn the ball over to have a chance this season.

Saturday afternoon the Penguins opened the 2008-09 season, its first with Martin on the bench, and did nothing Martin said they needed to do to win.

The result, as expected, was a lopsided 95-58 loss to Kent State, which was also opening its season before just over 700 fans at the M.A.C. Center.

“You just can’t have 29 turnovers with this young team and expect to win,” said Martin. “We also didn’t play defense the way we are capable of playing.

“I don’t think that we will be a very good shooting team this season and we are going to have to win with defense, a whole lot better than we did today,” she added.

The Penguins made just 18-of-54 shots from the field (33.3 percent) and were 7-of 18 from 3-point range (38.9 percent). Three of those came in the final minutes of play.

YSU held its own with the Flashes on the boards, losing just 35-34, but Kent outscored the Penguins 44-18 in the paint and 38-11 off turnovers. Kent State also committed 22 turnovers, but the Penguins didn’t take advantage of those mistakes.

Martin started the game with four guards, trying to take advantage of the Penguins’ quickness, but it just didn’t work out.

“We started out small, but they were making everything they threw up there early on and we had to get out of that quickly,” Martin said.

Five-foot-3 freshman guard Macey Nortey and junior Kaitlyn March led the Penguins with 13 points each, while freshman Camisha Alexander added 11 points, including a 3-for-5 effort from 3-point range. Senior Nikita LaFleur led the Penguins with eight rebounds.

The Flashes put five players in double figures, led by 6-4 senior Anna Kowalska with 19 points, while junior Rachel Bennett added 18 points and Chenel Harris, Jena Stutzman and Jamilah Humes all added 13 points. Harris led the Flashes on the boards with eight.

Kent shot 54.7 percent from the field (35-of-64) and was 9-of-21 from 3-point range.

The Penguins never led in the contest and quickly fell behind 9-4 and were trailing 15-7 while hitting on just three of their first 11 shots from the field.

After Kent pulled ahead 31-21 with 5:44 remaining the Penguins were never within double digits the remainder of the contest. The Flashes led 44-29 at the intermission.

Kent State scored the first six points of the second half and pulled to a 50-30 advantage and led by 31 points (76-45) with 6:25 left in the game. Their biggest margin was the final score.

The Penguins will open the home portion of their schedule Wednesday night when they play host to Buffalo in a 7:05 tip off at Beeghly Center.

mollica@vindy.com