YSU women crush Ohio Valley
YSU women crush Ohio Valley
From arguably its toughest win of the season to its easiest within the span of a couple days, the Youngstown State women’s team — after an 84-33 victory against Ohio Valley on Friday at Beeghly Center — is ready for its biggest challenge yet.
By Steve WILAJ
youngstown
From arguably its toughest win of the season to its easiest within the span of a couple days, the Youngstown State women’s team — after an 84-33 victory against Ohio Valley on Friday at Beeghly Center — is ready for its biggest challenge yet.
The Penguins, which improved to 10-0 for the first time since 1978-79, travel to the University of Pittsburgh on Sunday for a 2 p.m. matchup with the Panthers (7-3) of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“It’s an ACC game, so we’re all really excited,” said freshman Krista Pietropola, who scored a team-high 15 points on five 3’s against the Fighting Scots. “It was nice to have a couple games before and for everybody to get some experience. So everybody’s ready to go.”
YSU entered Friday’s contest fresh off a 73-65 overtime win at Robert Morris on Wednesday. The Penguins outscored the Colonials 27-12 over the final nine minutes to force the extra period.
They had a much easier time in defeating Division II Ohio Valley (0-9).
YSU opened the game on an 18-0 run, as the Fighting Scots didn’t crack the scoring column until the 14:31 mark of the first half. The Penguins led 46-16 after the first 20 minutes before outscoring Ohio Valley 38-17 in the second half.
No YSU starter played more than 14 minutes. In addition to Pietropola, the scoring was paced by reserves Kelley Wright with 13 points, Morgan Olson with 12 and Janae Jackson with 10.
“We had such an unbelievably hard game against Robert Morris and it would have been tough to have another tough game today,” Penguins coach John Barnes said. “So it was a good game for our players that play a lot of minutes to get some rest, but still play some minutes in a true game.”
YSU outrebounded the Fighting Scots 53-32, held them to 22 percent shooting and forced 20 turnovers.
“We were able to work on the smaller things,” Pietropola said. “Things we work on in practice, we were able to bring into the game and help us get more experience going into Pitt.”
Barnes said Pittsburgh -- winners of five of its last six games -- poses many challenges.
“They’re probably more athletic, quicker and longer in pretty much every position,” he said. “They do a lot of very good things on offense and shoot the ball really well…So we have our work cut out for us, but we’re gonna come in ready to go.”
The last time YSU played at Pitt was on Nov. 9, 2012 -- a 64-50 Penguins victory. Pietropola said that YSU -- which has its first 10-game winning streak since 1998 -- will enter the Petersen Events Center full of confidence.
“We learned [against Robert Morris] that no matter how far down we are, if we keep grinding, we’ll pull out with win,” she said.