Penguins bounce back, beat PFW for 3rd league win
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YOUNGSTOWN -- After suffering its first league loss of the season two days prior, Youngstown State rebounded with a stellar defensive effort to right the ship.
Surrendering just six points in the second quarter, YSU built a near 20-point lead and maintained it in the second half en route to a 60-44 pummeling of Purdue Fort Wayne in Horizon League play Saturday at the Beeghly Center.
"Fort Wayne is going to beat some teams, and they're a good club when they get it together," YSU coach John Barnes said. "I thought defensively, we did a really nice job."
Youngstown State (9-4, 3-1) wasn't especially sharp. The Penguins shot well, but committed 25 turnovers. YSU's defense picked up the slack, holding PFW (5-9, 2-2) to just 28.6 percent from the field -- 18-for-63.
Early on, the Mastodons were able to hold serve with YSU, as the Penguins led just 18-14 entering the second quarter.
From there, however, Youngstown State suffocated its guests. PFW scored just six points in the second quarter on a miserable 3-for-15 mark from the field, and YSU also forced five turnovers in that span. Purdue Fort Wayne scored its first points at the 9:04 mark, and then didn't score again until a basket with 1:31 to play -- 7:33 of game time.
Meanwhile, the Penguin offense hummed to the tune of 17 points on a 7-for-15 performance from the field in that quarter to build a 35-20 halftime lead. The Penguins never allowed Purdue Fort Wayne back to within single digits from there.
Key to that effort were Megan Callahan and Shay-Lee Kirby. Callahan spent the day guarding Purdue Fort Wayne's leading scorer, Ammelia Bromenschenkel, and held her to a season-low four points. Callahan went scoreless, but had the top +/- statistic, which tracks how each team performs while you're on the court, of any Penguin, at plus-23. She had seven rebounds, three assists and four steals in the win.
Kirby, meanwhile, scored seven points and added three rebounds and a steal.
"I think Megan Callahan did an outstanding job," Barnes said. "I asked the team who wants to guard Bromenschenkel -- their best player -- and Megan spoke up right away that she wanted to. So we put her on (Bromenschenkel), and I thought she did a really good job. The team helped out getting in the lanes and stuff, but the big thing was that she just worked really hard and did a great job on her."
Of Kirby, he added, "I thought Shay came off the bench and really gave us a lift with her energy and excitement with her rebounds and seven points. So a really good job."
Malia Magestro and Lilly Ritz powered the YSU offense. Magestro went 4-for-4 from 3-point range in the first half en route to a 16-point day, and Ritz tallied 20 points and 14 rebounds.
Dena Jarrells, meanwhile, made her first career YSU start and racked up seven assists and five rebounds to go with two points. Paige Shy added nine points on three shots from deep.
The 16-point day marked a needed rebound for Magestro, who went just 1-for-8 for four points against Cleveland State on Thursday.
"I couldn't really hit a shot against Cleveland State, but that's how it goes," Magestro acknowledged. "As a shooter, I'm going to keep shooting, so it felt really good confidence-wise to come out and make threes today."
The Penguins dominated in the post, as they outscored the Mastodons 30-18 in the paint and outrebounded their guests 46-27.
Still, it wasn't a perfect day with the 25 giveaways.
"That was the most disappointing thing with this game," Barnes said. "We just have to value the ball more. I don't know if it was because we had a decent lead pretty much the whole game, and sometimes you're sloppy with it. We played a lot of different lineups, too, because (Fort Wayne is) small, so that kind of hurt us a little bit. So that was disappointing, but we know that, and we'll work on it."
Abbigail Stephens was the lone Mastodon in double figures with 14 points.
Youngstown State will continue its season next week with the Michigan road swing. The Penguins visit Detroit Mercy on Thursday and then Oakland on Saturday.
jwhetzel@tribtoday.com