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YSU's Nortey embraces her grand finale
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
After playing more than 100 games over the past four years, Youngstown State senior guard Macey Nortey has just a handful left.
She tries not to think about it. Assistant trainer Jeff Wills makes sure she does.
“He constantly reminds me that [there’s] one game less of my career and I just tell him, ‘Jeff, please. I can’t. I can’t handle this,’” Nortey said, laughing. “I’m just going to embrace it, you know what I mean?
“I don’t think about it. [This weekend] is just another road trip with my team.”
Not counting the postseason, Nortey has played 112 career games with 99 starts. She’ll finish her career ranked in YSU’s top six in assists, games played, games started and minutes
But the most important statistic is this: For the first time in Nortey’s career, she has a chance to finish the season in the top half of the Horizon League standings.
“Obviously there’s some form of statistical goals that we as a team have but all in all, winning as a team is the ultimate goal when it comes down to it,” said Nortey, whose Penguins (10-12, 4-7) are seventh in the 10-team league. “We want to win every game.”
The Penguins play five of their final seven games on the road, beginning Thursday at Illinois-Chicago.
YSU has lost two of its last three games, but both losses (71-66 in overtime to Wright State, 65-63 to Butler) were among the Penguins’ best efforts of the season.
“It hurts a little bit when you wake up Sunday morning and even today, when you watch the tape,” YSU coach Bob Boldon said. “But last year we weren’t even in a lot of close games. I think the next step now is learning how to pull them out.”
UIC defeated YSU 77-68 on Jan. 14 and Boldon said the Flames’ athleticism present a big challenge.
“We’ll make some adjustments,” Boldon said. “I would like to try to get quicker between now and then but I don’t think that’s going to happen so we’re going to have to go with a different adjustment.
“That’s probably the thing that’s exciting for me and our staff is to try to think a little bit and try to create situations for our kids to be successful after seeing what may or may not have been successful the first time through.”