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YSU responds to coach’s challenge
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
After playing “terrible defense” at the end of last week’s loss to Bowling Green, Youngstown State women’s basketball coach Bob Boldon challenged his team to improve against Ohio.
“I thought they responded,” said Boldon, whose Penguins held the Bobcats to 31 percent shooting en route to a 55-47 road victory on Friday. “I was real happy with that. That’s a good sign when you challenge kids and you get to see a positive result from that challenge. It’s a sign of maturity and a desire to get better.”
It was the fourth straight road win for the Penguins (5-4), whose improvement has caught the attention of those outside the program, too.
Freshman forward Heidi Schlegel was named Horizon League player of the week by collegesportsmadness.com after scoring 13 against Bowling Green and a career-high 21 against Ohio. And junior forward Brandi Brown was recently added to collegechalktalk.com’s Worthy 20 list, comprised of players who should be included on the Wooden Award watch list if it included 50 players. (The men’s list has 50, while the women’s list has 30.)
Schlegel’s emergence, coupled with senior Kenya Middlebrook’s steady play, has taken some of the pressure off Brown, who too often was forced to carry the load the past two seasons.
“She’s very reliable,” Boldon said of Schlegel, who is averaging 12 points and five rebounds per game, both second on the team to Brown. “She’s a kid that has a great understand of what we’re trying to do offensively and defensively. She reads screens very well, able to score at the basket, able to score at the 3-point line and just as important is able to rebound the ball for us.
“We’ve been able to play Brandi a little bit less and able to play [senior guard] Tieara [Jones] a lot less and still get valuable minutes out of both of them.”
YSU, which won just one road game in the previous three seasons combined, will finish a stretch of four straight games against Mid-American Conference teams when it plays at Akron on Sunday.
The weeklong break gives the Penguins a chance to work on finals — and on getting better, Boldon said. After the Akron game, YSU will have nine days off before playing at Stony Brook on Dec. 27.
“I welcome the time off,” said Boldon, who spent five seasons as an assistant under Zips coach Jodi Krest. “We played a lot of games with a short turnaround and we have been spending more time preparing than we have necessarily getting better.
“This is a good week for us to spend some time teaching. For me, it’s exciting. I’m sure the kids would rather play.”