LaFleur leading YSU women

By Pete Mollica

The senior leads the team in scoring and rebounding, but the Penguins are still 2-13.

YOUNGSTOWN — “Like night and day” was the way Youngstown State women’s basketball coach Cindy Martin described the play of her senior forward Nikita LaFleur since the start of the season.

The 6-foot-2 standout from Scarborough, Ont., struggled through her first three seasons with the Penguins, averaging just 2.8 points and 3.7 rebounds in her first 69 games, 17 of them as a starter.

This season she started slowly in the scoring department, but has really picked up her game of late and has taken over the team lead in both scoring and rebounding.

LaFleur goes into Saturday’s Horizon League home contest against Cleveland State with a 10.4 scoring average and leads the Horizon League, averaging 8.9 rebounds.

She has been the team’s top rebounder in 13 of the team’s 15 games and had a career-high 17 rebounds against Weber State.

But despite her efforts the Penguins are just 2-13 on the season and 0-4 in the conference, something that bothers LaFleur.

“We just haven’t been able to finish too many games this season,” she said. “My teammates and my coaches are responsible for my improved play this year, but winning games is what’s most important to me and my teammates.”

LaFleur knows that regardless of how many points she scores or how many rebounds she gets, she can’t do it all herself and the Penguins need more support from the rest of the team.

“Basketball is a team sport and we have the players who can get the job done,” she said. “Our guards are working very hard on their shooting and hopefully their shots will begin to fall.”

Coach Martin has been getting her guards to get the ball inside more to both LaFleur and senior forward Tiara Scott and the result have been more points for both players, but nobody else has been scoring to help the cause.

“We’ve done a great job of getting the ball inside our last two games, and our shooters have been getting the shots also, but now we’ve got to get them to drop,” said Martin.

Martin has been impressed with the play of LaFleur.

“I only wish that I had her when she was a freshman,” said Martin.

“She works so hard and is tough as nails,” she added. “Right now she is experiencing a lot of pain in her achilles and we are keeping a eye on that. She has improved so much with the ball this year, but she is just a natural rebounder.”

Even though the Penguins have lost four straight in Horizon League play, LaFleur has been a dominate force for the team.

In the four league games she has averaged 14.5 points and 8.5 rebounds, had two double-doubles and scored 25 points in the team’s last game against Green Bay.

mollica@vindy.com