43
One bad quarter hurts YSU women
By Steve Wilaj
YOUNGSTOWN
Sophomore guard Nikki Arbanas thought the Youngstown State women’s team played well “95 percent” of the time on Saturday against Green Bay. Head coach John Barnes learned his Penguins “can play with one of the best teams in the country and Midwest, for sure.”
But in the end, it wasn’t a victory for YSU, but just that: a learning experience.
Despite playing well for three quarters, the Penguins fell to the Phoenix, 68-60, at Beeghly Center. It marked an improvement for YSU (12-3, 3-1 Horizon League), which lost to 17-time defending conference-champion Green Bay (13-2, 3-0 Horizon League) by 46 points at home last season, as well as 23 and nine points in two road games.
“On a scale of 1-10, I thought [Green Bay] played well,” Barnes said. “I like to think we are [closing the gap]. In terms of last year’s home game, we closed the gap a long way — actually both games. But I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about winning games and we didn’t win. It’s disappointing.”
The Penguins took a 20-17 lead after the first quarter, trailed by just one at halftime and outscored Green Bay by five in the fourth. But the Phoenix were keyed by a 19-7 third quarter in which they shot 8 for 17, while YSU went just 3 of 14 and committed five turnovers.
“I didn’t think we were as aggressive in the third,” Barnes said. “I thought [Allie] LeClaire (game-high 22 points) really took over in the second. She’s a really good player and we couldn’t handle her very well. They’re just hard to guard.”
YSU, which made 12 3-pointers on Thursday against Milwaukee, picked up where it left off and made five 3’s in the first quarter as it took a three-point lead. The Penguins — led by 13 points apiece from Arbanas, Indiya Benjamin and Sarah Cash — then extended their lead to 28-19 midway through the second quarter.
“We knew coming out that’s what we needed to do,” Arbanas said. “We needed to keep it going, though. We needed to keep it rolling instead of letting them come back like they did.”
Green Bay closed the second quarter strong to gain a 35-34 halftime lead and followed to open the third quarter on a 6-0 run as it took a 13-point lead into the fourth.
The Penguins cut the deficit to seven points twice in the fourth quarter — once at the 4:16 mark and again with 1:35 remaining. They also trailed by six with 30 seconds to go in regulation, but that’s as close as they came.
“I think we learned that we need to execute better,” Barnes said. “Execution really hurt us in the second half in terms of what we ran defensively and what we wanted to run offensively.”
YSU lost the rebounding battle, 41-28, as they surrendered 12 offensive boards. The Penguins also committed 14 turnovers, which Barnes addressed by saying, “That’s not bad. But against really good teams, you have to be around eight.”
YSU has one month before it gets another crack at the conference powerhouse, as the Penguins will travel to Green Bay on Feb. 11.
“This showed us the potential we have for this season and we just need to play off of that,” Arbanas said. “We need to learn from the mistakes we made and keep moving forward from here.”