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YSU women fall in Barnes’ debut
YOUNGSTOWN
Thankfully, it was just the beginning of the season and not the end of the world.
Although it may have felt that way for new coach John Barnes, Youngstown State’s season-opening 85-66 loss to Virginia Commonwealth University at Beeghly Center leaves plenty of room for improvement for the Penguins over the next five months.
“I felt like we came out strong with a 10-2 lead, then we started turning it over and our confidence went south and theirs started to grow and that was the difference in the game,” said Barnes, who, last year was the associate head coach at Horizon League champion Green Bay.
The opener for both women’s basketball teams began to fall apart for YSU when VCU went on a 25-6 run, beginning midway in the first half.
That’s when the Penguins’ lead was whittled from 14-7 to a 32-20 score in the Rams’ favor.
The turnaround via turnovers — YSU had 17 to VCU’s 5 — came at YSU’s expense and left the Penguins behind at halftime, 46-29. The final turnover disparity was 27-13 and the Rams had a glaring 23-4 advantage in steals.
“We wanted to chip away and score 15 to14 points by the 15-minute mark, then try to close to within 10,” Barnes said of his second-half goal. “We did make some inroads, but then we’d turn it over again or we’d get an offensive rebound and putback and it’s really hard to come back when you turn the ball over.”
YSU had a couple of bright spots in forwards Heidi Schlegel and Latisha Walker, who was playing her first game for YSU after sitting out a year following her transfer from Xavier. Schlegel had a career-high 27 points, while Walker, a former Lutheran East standout, added 18.
However, it wasn’t enough against the high-scoring Rams.
“Heidi [Schlegel] and Tish [Latisha Walker] — our two post players — had their points, but our perimeter players went 1-for-15 from 3-point range. That 15 isn’t a small number, but we’ve just got to make more. I felt like the looks weren’t terrible, but they just didn’t fall. I don’t know if it was first-game jitters, but the bottom line is that we turned the ball over 27 times.”
Schlegel also had 10 of YSU’s 48 rebounds, while Walker had nine.
Of her 27 points, Schlegel said, “My teammates got me the ball and I commend my teammates for that.”
The 6-0 junior gave a general outlook for the rest of the season.
“Some nights you have off nights and some good, so we’re going to need someone different step up each game.”
She also described the reasons for the loss: “We had way too many turnovers. We played hard, but we had too many turnovers and we didn’t block out. When we were on defense, they had way too many offensive rebounds.”
Although YSU controlled both ends of the court during the first part of first half, VCU coach Marlene Stollings had an answer.
“I knew that bringing eight newcomers into their gym would be a reason for jitters, but we changed the momentum by increasing our defensive intensity,” she said. “We made a couple substitutions, disrupted them [ Penguins] and got out and ran in transition, which is what we wanted to do,” Stollings said of Monna Finney-Smith and Ashley Mitchell.
“She raised our defensive energy level and handled the ball well,” Stollings, from Beaver, Ohio, said of Mitchell as a sub at the point guard position.
VCU had four players in double figures: Finney-Smith (18), Adaeze Alaeze (15), Robyn Parks (14) and Jessica Pellechio (10). Camille Calhoun had 10 of the Rams’ 44 rebounds.