Schlegel, Walker lead YSU women over Akron
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Akron women’s basketball coach Jodi Kest admits she’s a lousy loser, and she wasn’t too thrilled about getting some extra practice on Monday night.
“Whether it’s checkers or cards, I’m a poor loser,” she said. “And I don’t like to lose the way we lost today.”
In a battle of two 10-win teams, Youngstown State out-hustled and out-muscled the previously unbeaten Zips, pulling away for a 75-62 victory at Beeghly Center.
It was Akron’s first loss since falling to Purdue in the first round of the NCAA tournament last March.
“They were a better team today,” Kest said of the Penguins (11-1). “They played hard every possession and they deserved to win.
“You could just tell they wanted it more.”
Senior Latisha Walker scored a carer-high 25 points with 11 rebounds and senior Heidi Schlegel added 25 points and 15 rebounds for the Penguins (11-1), who are off to their best start since 1997-98.
When asked if she was expecting that kind of outburst, Walker smiled and said, “From Heidi, yeah. Me, I really like to play defense.”
“Schlegel always gives us problems,” Kest added. “She’s a phenomenal player, just a beast.”
Kest then turned to a reporter and asked, “She’s a senior right?” When told that Schlegel was, Kest said, “All right. Thank God.”
Youngstown State, which lost 91-75 to Akron exactly one year earlier, held the Zips to 30-percent shooting in the second half and led for all but 64 seconds in the game. The Zips entered the contest averaging 84.7 points per game — ninth-best in the country — but were held to their lowest point total of the season.
“They’re an unbelievably good scoring team and we just wanted to try and slow them down,” YSU coach John Barnes said. “They still got some fast-break points on us and still scored some points in transition, but for the most part, we were able to slow them down.”
Junior guard Anita Brown, a Warren Harding High graduate, led the Zips (10-1) with 24 points and nine rebounds, while Sina King added 18 points and 12 rebounds.
But Akron shot just 1 of 17 from the 3-point line and made just 13 of 43 shots in the second half.
YSU led by 10 points with 10 minutes remaining, but the Zips spent the next four minutes chipping away, finally getting the deficit down to five points on Hannah Plybon’s only 3-pointer of the game. (Plybon finished 1 of 9 from behind the arc.)
They would get no closer as YSU closed the game out at the free throw line, making 17 of 22 in the second half to hand the Zips their first road loss in 11 contests.
“They [the Penguins] were pretty excited,” said Barnes, whose team was coming off its first loss of the season, a 78-52 defeat at Pitt. “Akron was ranked [11th] in a mid-major poll, so this was a big win for our program.”
The Penguins play at Cornell on Friday before beginning Horizon League play next week at UIC. While Barnes didn’t specifically schedule Akron to get ready for conference play, it worked out anyway.
“I do like how our schedule is set up,” he said. “Our schedule is getting tougher every day.”
Said Walker: “This was a really good win. Going into conference, it gives us a lot of confidence. We’ve just got to stick together, play hard and go win.”