YSU’s Benjamin matches career-best in victory

February 29, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

YSU guard matches

career-best in victory

By STEVE WILAJ

YOUNGSTOWN

In Youngstown State’s first matchup with UIC on Jan. 21, the Penguins picked up a close five-point victory, but Indiya Benjamin knows she wasn’t herself.

The sophomore point guard — who has battled an ankle injury for the past month — sprained her ankle for the first time during that contest and 11 points on 30-percent shooting in 31 minutes.

On Sunday, Benjamin wanted to show the Flames her true self. She did just that, scoring a career high-tying 22 points as YSU downed UIC, 62-41, at Beeghly Center in its final regular-season home game.

“It feels good,” said Benjamin, who called herself 96-98 percent healthy. “To go down there and sprain my ankle the first time, I didn’t get to play to my full potential. So I tried to get it back a little and play hard.”

Benjamin shot 9 of 15 from the field, including 4 of 6 from 3-point territory.

YSU (18-9, 9-7 Horizon League) led by 12 points at the break after outscoring UIC, 17-6, in the second quarter — keyed by a Benjamin 3 and layup to close the half.

“We’re a lot different team when we’re at full strength and everybody’s healthy,” YSU coach John Barnes said. “Janae [Jackson] (ankle injury) is getting back to normal and so is Indiya. I feel like our chemistry is getting back, our rotations and subbing is getting back and we’re playing better.”

The Penguins, winners of three of their past four games, held UIC (12-16, 3-14) to just 35 percent shooting. They also forced 25 turnovers and closed the contest with a 20-9 fourth quarter advantage.

UIC senior forward Ruvanna Campbell entered averaging 18 points per game, but scored just 14 on 7 of 16 shooting on Sunday.

“Our main focus all week in practice was defense,” Benjamin said. “[Campbell] is a very good player, so our main focus was to stop her and limit her touches. It was all about being in help-side defense, packing it in and making it tough on her. I think we did that tonight.”

No other Flames player reached double-digit scoring.

“I feel like the last four or five games, we’ve stepped up and played defense closer to how we played it throughout the beginning of the year,” Barnes said. “And we needed to. This team’s talented.”

YSU shot 40 percent for the contest, as Nikki Arbanas added 11 points. Sarah Cash also scored nine points for a Penguins team that shot 46 percent in the second half.

“We just tried to push the basketball, make good decisions and make open shots,” Barnes said. “They had some shots that didn’t fall in that second quarter, but overall we were just in pretty good position.

“We’re a young team and we have to battle ups and downs. But I like where we’re headed.”

YSU battled the schedule this week, as both of its games -- originally scheduled for Thursday and Saturday -- were pushed back a day because of a snowstorm in the Chicago area on Wednesday that hampered UIC and Valparaiso’s traveling plans.

Now, YSU will hit the road for two games to close the season. The Penguins play at Northern Kentucky on Thursday and at Wright State on Saturday.

“It would be great to get to 20 wins on the season,” Benjamin said. “I think we’re on a great track of doing that.”