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YSU women roll past Penn State-Beaver
By Greg Gulas
YOUNGSTOWN
Mary Dunn scored 13 points, Melinda Trimmer and McKenah Peters had 12 each and Chelsea Olson had 10 as the Youngstown State women crushed Penn State-Beaver 97-40 in the fifth annual Chick-Fil-A School Field Trip game Wednesday at Beeghly Center.
It was a game that afforded head coach John Barnes the luxury of playing all 15 squad members and securing valuable playing time for multiple non-starters as the Penguins completed the non-conference portion of their schedule.
“I think the biggest thing for us was getting more confidence. The Northern Arizona win boosted our confidence and this just added on to that. We need that going into conference play,” Barnes said. “What we really wanted out of this was to get everyone playing time. I thought McKenah kind of continued to do what she did against Northern Arizona and some previous games.
“I thought Melinda Trimmer had a great game today and that was big for us because we need her to play well. Josie Fisher with seven assists and no turnovers is a huge day and I thought Chelsea Olson had flashes of what she can do, which is really big as well. All of those things are what we needed and I thought the team got done what we needed to get done.”
The Penguins raced to an early 11-0 advantage behind two buckets from Dunn and a triple by Nikki Arbanas, but the stretch might have been a costly one.
Junior Allison Smolinski injured her left ankle on a drive to the bucket at the 7:29 mark, leaving the court for the rest of the game and forcing Barnes to call upon Trimmer to complete her free-throw attempts.
“We don’t know anything right now as she is getting X-rays. We’ll know more later on, but she was walking on it and said the ankle felt pretty good,” Barnes said. “You just never know what you’ll find on an X-ray.”
YSU connected on three of their game-high 13 triples in the opening session as they raced to a 23-6 lead heading to the second period.
Triples by Trimmer, Peters and Natalie Myers keyed a 15-0 run at the outset of the second stanza as they built a 38-6 margin.
Despite their offensive success, Trimmer felt that they could still be better defensively.
“I think we’re going to go back and focus on our defense the most,” she said. “I think we ran the gaps really well, but there were some things we missed defensively. Our goal was to hold them to 40 points or less and I’m sure we’ll all be proud of that. We’ll look at the film, see how this helps us and then focus next on Detroit.”
A free throw by Brittany Jackson at 5:46 of the second quarter broke a 4:39 scoring draught by the Lions, but Peters added six more as YSU went on a 17-12 run to open a 55-19 halftime advantage.
With 3,631 screaming fans and seats loaded with a bevy of school-aged children, Peters called the atmosphere electric.
“It was huge for everyone to have an opportunity to get into the game. With nearly everyone scoring, that was huge as well,” Peters stated. “The kids made the atmosphere so much fun. Everyone that got into the game just felt more comfortable out there because of the crowd. Everyone had fun with it.”
Two triples by Morgan Brunner and buckets from beyond the arc by both Trimmer and Dunn helped YSU (4-7) open a 79-29 lead with a quarter remaining.
Jackson proved to be a one-player wrecking crew for Penn State-Beaver (5-7), scoring seven of her team’s 11 points in the final frame and finishing with a game-high 24.
YSU led in all of the major tell-tale categories, holding a 40-6 advantage in points off turnovers, an 18-0 margin in fast break points with their bench outscoring the Lions by a 79-6 count.
YSU is now 2-0 on its current six-game homestand and with the win, remained undefeated in their last 19 games against non-Division I opponents dating back to 1990.