Viking women rally late to drop Penguins
CSU 76
YSU 71
Next: YSU vs. UIC, Thursday, 7:05 p.m.
Staff report
CLEVELAND
Cleveland State rallied from a 12-point deficit in the second half and went 8-for-8 from the free-throw line in the final 40 seconds to beat the Youngstown State women’s basketball team 76-71 on Saturday at the Wolstein Center.
YSU’s Brandi Brown scored 28 points, and Tieara Jones had 14 points and 13 rebounds. Shawnita Garland scored 25 points for Cleveland State, including eight in the final minute. Her steal of a short pass and fast-break lay-up with a minute remaining broke a 66-66 tie.
Shalonda Winton added 20 points for the Vikings (17-10, 10-6), who moved into a tie for third place in the league standings.
Cleveland State held its largest lead of the game at 43-36 with 15:26 left, but Youngstown State scored 16 straight points over the next three minutes to go up 52-43. Bojana Dimitrov’s basket then gave the Penguins their largest lead at 63-51 with 7:04 remaining, but Cleveland State went on a 15-1 run to regain the lead on Garland’s bucket with 2:44 left.
Brown’s basket with 2:24 remaining tied the score at 66-66, and neither team scored until Garland’s steal and lay-up with a minute left. Honesty King hit two free throws with 38.2 seconds remaining to put the Vikings up four, but Brown’s old-fashioned three-point play cut the margin to 70-69 with 25.6 ticks left.
Garland made two free throws for the Vikings to put them up 72-69, and Jones missed the tying 3-pointer from the wing with 14 seconds left. Garland made two free throws with 11.3 seconds remaining, and she hit two more with 4.6 seconds on the clock to finish it off.
Youngstown State scored 26 of its 28 points in the first half in an 11-minute span, but cold spells at the beginning and end of the period left it down 31-28 at the break.
The Penguins started 0-for-8 from the field as Cleveland State built a 7-0 lead. Jones scored eight of YSU’s first 11 points, and Brown’s first bucket of the game gave the Penguins its first lead at 15-14 with 8:24 to go.