43
Detroit rallies from 16 down to shock YSU women
Photo
Youngstown State’s Indiya Benjamin tries to get past Detroit’s Ellisha Crosby during their Horizon League game Wednesday at YSU’s Beeghly Center. The Penguins allowed a 16-point lead to slip away and fell 59-58 to the Titans.
Detroit rallies from 16 down to shock Penguin women
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
After the Penguins jumped out to a 16-point halftime lead over Detroit on Wednesday night, Youngstown State women’s basketball coach John Barnes told his team it needed to come out fired up in the second half.
Maybe he was in the wrong locker room.
The visiting Titans scored the first 14 points of the second half to grab the momentum, then made just enough plays down the stretch to stun the Penguins 59-58 in a Horizon League game at Beeghly Center.
“We’ve got to find a way to win that one,” Barnes said, “and we didn’t.”
Rosanna Reynolds scored a game-high 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for the Titans (8-12, 3-4), who shot 17 of 30 from the field over the final 20 minutes. Reynolds also made the game’s biggest shot, a turnaround right hook with 23 seconds left that gave Detroit a 57-54 lead.
YSU’s Kelsea Newman missed a 3-pointer on the other end, then snagged the rebound and drew a foul with 9.4 seconds left. She made both free throws, cutting the deficit to one.
After Detroit’s Haleigh Ristovski made a pair of free throws with 5.9 seconds left, the Titans’ Ellisha Crosby wisely opted to foul Penguins guard Nikki Arbanas before she could attempt a game-tying 3-pointer. Arbanas made both free throws with three seconds left — she was trying to miss the second — and YSU fouled Reynolds, who missed the front end of a one-and-one. Penguins guard Jenna Hirsch grabbed the rebound but couldn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.
“They came out [in the second half] and played harder than we did,” said YSU senior Heidi Schlegel, who finished with 15 points and a game-high 15 rebounds. “At the end we picked it up but that’s not going to win you games, especially against good teams. You’ve got to play hard for 40 minutes.”
The Penguins made just 1 of 12 3-pointers in the second half and were 6 of 24 from the field over that stretch, getting outscored 40-23.
“It’s hard to win games when you’re 1 for 12 from 3,” Barnes said.
Arbanas scored 13 points for YSU (14-5, 3-3), which has lost two straight. Jenna Hirsch added 10 points off the bench — she had started the previous 18 games — while her replacement, Newman, had 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting.
Senior Latisha Walker (three points on 1 of 8 shooting) and freshman Indiya Benjamin (five points on 2 of 10 shooting) were both ice cold on Wednesday.
“Although everyone was talking about how good we were and stuff like that, I knew we were good, but not that good,” Barnes said. “You have to play well to win games and when you have a ton of young kids, there’s gonna be ups and downs.”
The Penguins now have a few days to shake off the loss before playing host to Milwaukee on Saturday.
Schlegel hopes they use them wisely.
“Tomorrow, we have to come ready to practice,” she said. “I think that we’re gonna have to sit down with the team and talk to them because this is unacceptable, really. We’re a lot better than what we showed today.”