YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State was unable to overcome its worst shooting performance of the season on Thursday.
Northern Kentucky gave the Penguins a dose of their own medicine defensively, as YSU shot just 27.1% in a 61-49 loss to the Norse at Zidian Family Arena.
“We shot it really good on Monday (against Oakland), so sometimes shots don’t fall,” redshirt freshman forward Sarah Baker said. “I thought we got looks that we usually get, and it’s just unfortunate that today we weren’t hitting. There’s really nothing you can do when shots aren’t falling.”
NKU (7-11, 4-3 Horizon) continued its run as one of the hottest teams in the Horizon League, stretching its win streak to four, while YSU (11-5, 4-2 Horizon) saw its own four-game winning streak snapped.
Neither team had much to offer offensively in the first quarter. By the end of the period, YSU led 7-6, as the two teams combined to shoot 5-for-33 from the floor.
“Tried to get the ball inside. Right from the jump, I think their game plan was to double us,” head coach Melissa Jackson said. “We saw that, and then I think it affected us a little later on in the game. I think our posts were a little concerned about that.”
From there, however, the Norse found their shooting touch. After its 3-of-17 start, NKU shot 47.7% the rest of the night. Maddie Moody led a balanced scoring effort for the Norse with 17 points, as Abby Wolterman added 10 points.
“We didn’t get stops,” Jackson said. “So much of our game and our transition comes down to rebounding and running. So I give Northern Kentucky a lot of credit because they crashed the offensive glass and won that battle.”
The Norse didn’t win the rebounding battle by much — 41-38. But they dominated the Penguins in the other critical categories in the post.
Northern Kentucky scored 38 points in the paint, compared to just 18 for YSU, while also maintaining a 20-7 advantage in second-chance points.
“We gave them a lot of second-chance opportunities,” Baker said. “Our post defense wasn’t the best. We were in foul trouble all the time. We gave them a lot of easy looks that we don’t usually give teams. Our help side was too deep, I feel like, in this game. Then we had to rotate, and they just got a lot of really good looks.”
Baker led YSU with 12 points, while Erica King and Danielle Cameron each finished with 11 points. Amidst its shooting struggles, the Penguins didn’t get more than five points from anyone else.
After a tight contest throughout, NKU led by one at the end of the third quarter, and the Norse put the clamps on the Penguins in the fourth.
It took YSU almost five minutes to score its first points of the quarter, and it made three of its 17 shots, as NKU outscored the Penguins 18-7 in the final period to pull away.
Noelle Hubert and Kamora Morgan knocked down back-to-back threes midway through the quarter to stretch the Norse’s lead to 10, and YSU was never able to recover after that.
“Foul trouble, so we had some different, funky lineups there,” Jackson said. “Sarah had to play the four today. Northern Kentucky goes with two bigs — not a lot of teams in our league do that. So having Sophia (Gregory) on the bench did not help us. Went to the zone to try to protect us, and credit to them, they hit big threes out of there. Did not want to play this team with a lot of zone. They’re the best three-point shooting team in our league.”
YSU has a quick turnaround for its third game of the week, as the Penguins complete their four-game homestand on Saturday at 2 p.m. against Purdue Fort Wayne.
“We need to come out right away,” Baker said of Saturday’s game. “We can’t let teams push us around, especially on our home court. Talking to us, getting excited on our home court — we need to take that stuff personally, and then we need to come out strong. We need to be physical, but smart and rebound the ball.”
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