YSU Sports

Time to Cash in at YSU

Lordstown grad poised to star

YOUNGSTOWN -- Nov. 18, 2014. Sarah Cash won't forget that day, nor should she.

The Lordstown High School graduate sat on the Youngstown State University bench. Her women's basketball team was inside the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center on The Kent State University campus.

Last thing she thought was to see any kind of playing time against the Golden Flashes. Latisha Walker was in first-half foul trouble. YSU coach John Barnes looked down his bench and pointed at Cash.

She was a walk-on. There's no way Barnes was pointing at her.

"When he told me I was going in, I thought, 'What? You're talking to me?' " Cash said. "He wanted me to go in for Tish because she was in foul trouble. It all worked out."

Cash was 2 for 4 from the floor with four points, three rebounds and a blocked shot. Not bad for her first collegiate game, especially for a non-scholarship player.

The 6-foot-1 Cash has overcome the skeptics before, even if it's been in her own head. She learned how to play the center position at YSU, something that was foreign to her prior to becoming a Penguin player.

Cash began doing individual workouts and watched film with her coach. She still learns from Barnes every day.

"I love playing the five now," said Cash, whose YSU team opens the 2018-19 season Tuesday at home against Robert Morris. "When I first got here, I was more afraid of it. I embrace it every game."

The same love isn't there for another "part" to Cash's game: her knee brace.

"The doctor told me I have to wear it as long as I play," said Cash, who has had an operation on each knee. "I already asked to get it off."

The knee brace has been with her since her days at Lordstown, when she suffered a torn ACL. Back then it was her left knee. She experienced setbacks in her right one as well while at YSU, leading to arthroscopic surgery, and that's where the large black brace resides.

It has never discouraged the Red Devils all-time leading scorer. Lordstown girls basketball coach Dave Smith knows her commitment to the game. It was that passion that led her back on the floor her senior year.

"She's been relentless on how hard she works and how much she loves the game," Smith said.

Cash isn't one for interviews, except when talking about her three dogs, Eddie, Addie and Kyrie. She mentioned one of her dogs had a birthday with a sense of excitement, not something normally seen from the reserved Cash during a news conference.

"Ever since I've known her she's always been nervous with interviews," Smith said. "I know when she was back in high school she would always try to sneak out, try not to get an interview, knowing the paper has somebody there to interview her."

Cash isn't a vocal leader on this YSU team. She's more of a facilitator.

"She's soft-spoken on the court, too," Barnes said. "I think the players will watch her work ethic and how technical she is with her positioning, also how technical she is with her positioning defensively. Offensively, they see how really focusing on the details leads you to be a really good player."

Mary Dunn, a 6-3 junior center, has been Cash's protege. Dunn has absorb a lot of Cash's teachings.

"She might not be the loudest person, but she knows what she's talking about," Dunn said. "Specifically she's come up to everyone. If it's me and I got yelled at or something, she's going to tell me exactly how I need to do it, what I did wrong. It's the simple things coach might not think of saying because he's got so much on his mind. She's more of specifically helping everyone in that way."

Cash is keeping up strengthening her knees every day. The Horizon League preseason first-team selection is constantly honing her skills and helping her team.

Her minutes at practice and early this season are limited to make sure Cash is healthy later in the season.

She has shed the nervousness on the floor (she's getting there on interviews, too). Playing center doesn't bother Cash anymore.

"I think about I can do it," she said. "If I couldn't do it, I wouldn't be put out there on the floor. I wouldn't be asked to do certain things. I tell myself they have confidence in me. I have to have confidence in myself."

Cash, a fifth-year senior, could be poised for a breakout season for the Penguins after being hampered with knee issues the past two seasons.

Cash, who has 1,017 points in her career, averaged 14 points, had 242 rebounds and 38 blocked shots her sophomore year when she received Horizon League first-team honors. She hopes the progression of the past two seasons leads to this year being her best.

"She does a great job for us," Barnes said. "We're expecting a great year out of her."

YSU travels to Kent State on Nov. 20, more than four years after her collegiate debut. She'll go back as a team leader -- no longer a bench player.