Penguins get A for effort

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Youngstown St. didn’t execute well enough, though, in 73-45 loss to Bowling Green

By ROB TODOR

VINDICATOR SPORTS EDITOR

YOUNGSTOWN — Everybody liked the effort, and for good reason. Youngstown State just couldn’t overcome poor execution.

The Penguins hung tough with a seasoned and talented Bowling Green women’s team for the game’s 12 minutes on Monday, but too many turnovers, not enough baskets and poor post defense combined to doom YSU, 73-45, at Beeghly Center.

The Penguins (0-11) shot just 28 percent (16 of 58) from the field and had nearly three times as many turnovers (23) as assists (8).

On the opposite end, Bowling Green (8-3) didn’t play exceptionally well, either, but the Falcons had their way around the post and converted YSU’s mistakes into enough points to eventually pull away.

“Definitely liked the effort,” said coach Cindy Martin of Youngstown State whose team has lost 12 straight games over two seasons.

“But we’ve got to do better around the basket defensively and defending their 3-point shooters. Those were the two strengths of theirs that we needed to defend and we didn’t do a very good job.”

Tracy Pontius led the Falcons with 16 points and five assists, while the reigning Mid-American Conference player of the year, Lauren Prohaska, scored 12 points and had eight rebounds. All but two of her points came after halftime.

Macey Nortey and Brandi Brown personified YSU’s effort, leading the Penguins with 14 points and a career-high 17 rebounds, respectively.

But YSU simply couldn’t get anything going in the paint on a consistent basis and leading scorer Bojana Dimitrov was held to just nine points on 3-of-15 shooting.

“We wanted to try to wear them down with our depth and really try to keep the game up-tempo,” said Bowling Green coach Curt Miller. “We thought if it got into a high-scoring affair that we had more options.”

Those options panned out much better in the first half, when the Falcons shot 51 percent (19 of 37) and led 41-24.

Prochaska and Pontius hit 3s in the first 11‚Ñ2 minutes of the second half as Bowling Green extended its lead to 50-26.

But the Falcons went cold from the field, going scoreless over the next six minutes while Youngstown State went on an 8-0 run.

Prochaska, though, hit a 3 coming out of a timeout, the Penguins committed their 19th and 20th turnovers on consecutive possessions and Bowling Green regained command.

“We did a good job defensively, not only with field goal percentage, but we got deflections and steals and that was a key to allow us to get out and run,” said Miller.

By contrast, Martin said all the Penguins’ problems offensively stemmed from not playing well at the other end.

“We didn’t get enough stops to allow us to get into a transition,” she said, “and fifteen [offensive] rebounds by Bowling Green is awful. Five is too many.”

The Penguins trailed only 20-16 with 8:51 remaining in the first half on a Maryum Jenkins basket — that culminated a stretch of seven minutes in which YSU made 5 of 9 shots — but the turnovers began to mount after that.

The Penguins had nine miscues the first 121‚Ñ2 minutes and the faster pace benefited the Falcons, who opened a 10-point lead (26-16) with 7:25 remaining.

That pace seemed to take its toll on YSU over the final nine minutes of the period. Bowling Green outscored the Penguins 21-8 to end the half and had a 30-10 run spanning the two halves, talking a 50-26 lead with just over 17 minutes to play. YSU got only to within 18 points a couple of times after that.

“Cindy has them playing very, very hard and scrappy,” said Miller of the Penguins. “I know the [YSU] program is going to get in the right direction.”

todor@vindy.com