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Women take big step, but come up a bit short
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YSU's #21, Tiara Scott makes her way down the court as Milwauke's #11 Lindsay Laur tries to block during a matchup between the two at YSU's Beeghley Center, Thursday night.
By Pete Mollica
YSU coach Cindy Martin was pleased with her team’s efforts in the 72-60 loss to Horizon rival UM-Milwaukee.
YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State women’s basketball coach Cindy Martin feels her team took a big step forward Thursday.
The Penguins didn’t win, but they did play much better against a pretty good UW-Milwaukee team.
YSU battled the Panthers most of the way, but just couldn’t finish strong enough as it suffered a 72-60 loss to Milwaukee in a Horizon League contest at Beeghly Center.
The loss was the Penguins’ (2-12, 0-3 Horizon) fourth straight and their ninth in the last 10 games, while the Panthers (6-7, 1-1) posted their first conference win.
The Penguins had been blown out in their last two conferences road games. Both were over by halftime.
Martin was pleased with the effort Thursday.
“We didn’t play very well in our last two games, but we did play well tonight, we just didn’t finish,” she added. “We played well together and against a good team.”
The Penguins got a pair of double-double performances from seniors Nikita LaFleur and Tiara Scott. LaFleur had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Scott added 13 points and 11 rebounds. It was the first time since 2003 that the Penguins had two players get double-doubles in the same game.
They also had two other players in double figures including freshman Macey Nortey with 11 and junior Jaquetta Westley with 14.
“I thought that Nikita and Tiara did an outstanding job on the boards with six and seven offensive boards each, while Macey, just a freshman, did an outstanding job controlling the tempo of the game,” Martin added.
The only thing the Penguins couldn’t control was Milwaukee senior Traci Edwards, who finished with a game-high 21 points and eight rebounds. Those totals put the 6-2 center over the 2,000 point mark and the 1,000 rebound mark in her career.
The Penguins never led, but they stayed within range of the Panthers, especially in the first half.
Milwaukee held as much as a 10-point lead twice in the half, but the Penguins would not let them extend that lead.
After falling behind 5-0 in the opening minutes YSU stayed within that margin until midway in the half when Edwards hit a 3-point goal and Maurika Hickman added a basket to pull the Panthers to a 24-15 lead.
Milwaukee led by 10 points, 30-20, and again 32-22 with 5:09 remaining when the Penguins, behind LaFleur, scored eight straight points to close to within two points 32-30 with 1:45 remaining.
Edwards, who had 13 points in the half, scored with 1:25 left and Westley added two free throws, but Ashley Imperiale hit a pair of charity tosses with less than a second remaining to get to the halftime score of 36-32.
The Panthers rebuilt the lead in the second half to 10 points and led by as many as 14 points in the final minutes.
The Penguins will remain at home Saturday night when they play host to UW-Green Bay in a 4:30 p.m. tip off at Beeghly. The YSU men and Loyola will play in the second game at 7:05 p.m.