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NO JET LAG FOR PENGUINS
youngstown
After a long trip to and from Hawaii, that included all-night travel plans to get back home, the Youngstown State University women’s basketball team took care of business, downing Division II Tiffin 84-62 at the Beeghly Center.
Sarah Cash, who has been seeing limited minutes in the early going with some right-knee soreness, had a career high point total off the bench with 29 to lead all scorers.
“I didn’t even know I had that many points while I was out there,” Cash said.
Tiffin initially looked like they were going to hang with the Penguins in the first quarter. Despite turning the ball over eight times, the Dragons (1-3) outrebounded YSU (2-3) 14-5 in the opening 10 minutes and thoughts of a long night began to form in YSU head coach John Barnes’ head.
“I thought this was kind of a trap game,” Barnes said. “Tiffin is a good team that’s outstanding at shooting the ball from three, we just had a 6,000 mile road trip and tomorrow is Thanksgiving so I’m giving them a day and a half off.”
All that changed midway through the second quarter when Cash blew open a tie game with nine straight points and the lead eventually swelled to 17 points at halftime.
Tiffin didn’t score in the final 5:42 of the second quarter.
“Initially I think we were playing to their level,” YSU freshman forward Mary Dunn said. “We just had to put our minds to it.”
Cash’s final line was about as efficient as you can get. She made 13 of 17 shots in 18 minutes played and grabbed six rebounds.
“Sarah has had probably about five minutes of five-on-five practice since mid summer,” Barnes said. “She’s got a lot of rust and she’s kicking it off every game. Every game she gets a little more comfortable.”
There were many impressive statistics to choose from a YSU perspective. YSU outscored Tiffin in points in the paint 54-24, off turnovers 18-8 and 51-17 in bench points.
Despite the dominance, especially in the paint, YSU only nabbed a 40-39 rebounding advantage. Barnes mostly attributed that to Tiffin’s long-distance shooting.
“They took a ton of threes which lead to long rebounds and they got a lot of those,” Barnes said. “It’s no excuse. We’re trying to get better at it but they shot 31 percent so there’s going to be a lot of rebounds.”
With all the injuries, Barnes was pleased with how some of his younger players stepped up, giving significant minutes. Sophomore Alison Smolinski sent two-for-three from three-point land and grabbed six rebounds while point guard Mailee Jones had six assists to one turnover.
“All the guards came in and did a solid job,” Barnes said. “Alison did a good job handling pressure and Mailee had a great assist to turnover ratio.”
That long trip back from the Pacific didn’t affect the team much at all according to Dunn.
“We didn’t let that affect us,” Dunn said. “We had that big win [against Sacramento State] and we wanted to get back and get a win at home.”