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CSU women top YSU, 84-80
By Joe Catullo Jr.
CLEVELAND
Trailing by two points with 10 seconds remaining Saturday evening, the Youngstown State women’s basketball team had an ideal transaction that would have tied the game.
Karen Flagg collected the rebound after Adesuwa Aideyman missed two free throws. Flagg passed to Liz Hornberger, who then tossed it to Kelsea Newman.
Newman drove to the paint with two Cleveland State defenders on each side. As she went up, the ball slipped. The layup attempt fell short.
Newman then fouled Cori Coleman who hit both free throws and sealed the victory, 84-80. CSU (10-11, 5-3 Horizon League) ended on a 6-0 scoring run.
“It worked perfectly, but that’s the least of my concerns,” YSU coach John Barnes said. “We just weren’t ready to play like we normally are. I felt like we looked sluggish. We looked slow. We didn’t have a pop in our step. That’s what cost us the game. Not Kelsea’s miss.”
YSU (10-10, 6-1) had another opportunity before the Vikings missed both free throws. Flagg was called for an offensive charge with 12 seconds remaining.
“We had just said, ‘If you step in to help, get set and take a charge because once they’re going to the basket, they’re going to go,’” CSU coach Kate Peterson Abiad said. “It didn’t end up being a secondary defender. It ended up being Imani [Gordon], and she does really well with her body control and not using her hands.”
The major problem for YSU was rebounding. The Vikings collected seven more rebounds and half of their 46 were on the offensive end. CSU ranked last in the conference in rebounding margin (-6.9) entering Saturday.
“This game, early on, I think we recognized that we can get to the boards on offense,” Abiad said. “It’s like anything in basketball. Once you have success in something, we just get really excited about it.”
The Vikings scored 19 second-chance points off of 13 offensive boards in the first half.
“I think we underestimated them on offense,” Heidi Schlegel said. “I think that we were ready to come out and play defense. They rebounded really hard, and we just weren’t ready for that.”
The Vikings’ rebounding kept them afloat in the first half despite allowing YSU to shoot 64 percent. YSU led, 48-40, at halftime. Melissa Thompson scored 13 points in the half, which was one shy of her career high.
CSU’s defensive pressure picked up in the second half, allowing only 32 points. Thompson did not score one point.
Schlegel finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds, both game highs. Jenna Hirsch scored 10 while Flagg, Latisha Walker and Liz Hornberger each had eight.
For CSU, Coleman had 22 points as well while Kiersten Green finished with 19. All five starters scored at least 11 points.
“Our game is predicated on being tough and playing extremely hard,” Barnes said. “I just didn’t feel like we did that today necessarily. We have to play harder and smarter than everybody else to get wins.”