Penguins rock CSU

January 1, 2012 at 12:10a.m.

YOungstown

It was too early for the New Year’s Eve ball to be dropping, so the jolt felt throughout a shaking Beeghly Center Saturday afternoon during the Youngstown State-Cleveland State women’s game could only be explained in one word: Fracketball.

Whether or not a brine-injection well for fracking fluids had some bearing on the Horizon League opener’s peace, the game had the feel of a Subterranean League opener.

One person it didn’t rattle was YSU’s Brandi Brown of earthquake-tested California.

The big news of the day for Brown was a 70-48 win over Cleveland State, a game in which the 5-foot-11 junior from Pomona, Calif., had 23 points and 12 rebounds for the Lady Penguins (7-5, 1-0).

“A lot of it was being patient — not just me but the team — and making sure we executed and took the right shots,” Brown said.

Brown addressed Youngstown’s quick start that put Cleveland State behind, 14-2: “We attacked first and that was major. We hit first, then pushed through it.”

Of the temblor that occurred early in the second half, Brown said: “I’m used to those.”

Not visibly fazed, either, was Youngstown coach Bob Boldon, who liked the exclamation point his women put on the 2011 segment of the season.

“I thought it was the culmination of good week’s practice since back from Christmas,” Boldon said of the Horizon opener for both teams. “It’s nice to see the kids work hard and get rewarded.”

Heidi Schlegel had 16 points and Monica Touvelle added 12 as YSU snapped a nine-game losing streak against the visiting Vikings (5-7, 0-1).

Boldon said it was a confidence builder.

“I think the expectations are starting to build between each other when you see us at practice every day, when the kids work hard and hold each other accountable for their actions and have a high level of expectations for each other. I think that translates into wins.”

Holding Cleveland State to 48 points was a plus.

“I thought they executed the game plan, defensively, really well,” Boldon said of his team. “Obviously, we shot the ball well. I don’t think it was outstanding; it’s what we were shooting before Christmas.”

Defensively, YSU’s game plan differed from past games.

“Nobody runs an offense like Cleveland State, so having a unique [defensive] game plan and being able to execute is what I’m most proud of.”

Part of that plan was clogging the middle.

“That’s something we didn’t do in the 11 non-conference games we play,” Boldon said of protecting the paint area.

“I tell my team that non-conference games get them ready for conference play. Then, in the first conference game, we don’t even do something that we did before. So, being able to do that [protect paint] and be effective at it was important.”

Cleveland State lost two players to fouls, including Takima Keane with 8:03 remaining. Keane, who had been averaging 12.1 points per game, was held scoreless.

Destinee Blue, who entered the game averaging 14.2 ppg., finished with eight points.

Shalonda Winton led CSU with 17 points and 13 rebounds.

YSU out-scored CSU, 15-6, off of turnovers in the first half.

“Yes, we took some passes away. We knew we couldn’t take all of their passes away — they did too good a job of leading screens and passing to the open person — but we felt like there were a few passes we could take away. We did a nice job of that and converting those into points at the other end.”

All of Touvelle’s points came on 3-point goals in the first half.

“She didn’t shoot the ball well at Stonybrook, but she’s been in the gym all week. So it was nice to see that work pay off. Monica made the shots, but others did a good job screening for her, like Macey [Nortey] delivering the ball on time, so she [Touvelle] could catch and shoot and not reach or wait for it when she was open got the ball and shot.”

The coach was asked about YSU’s 70-point output after scoring 47 in a loss at Stonybrook on Dec. 27.

“I think it was getting refocused. I told the ladies after that game that you get what you deserve.

“We didn’t play hard, we didn’t work hard, so we deserved to lose. This week, we put in a good week of work and spent extra time shooting and I thought they got what they deserved. They made shots they should make.”