Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes. YSU's Sarah Baker (right) and Casey Santoro (middle) mob Sophia Gregory (left) after her game-tying, buzzer-beating tip in at the end of regulation to force overtime on Wednesday night against Robert Morris at the Beeghly Center.

YOUNGSTOWN — For a young roster, this season has been full of learning experiences for the Youngstown State women’s basketball team.

Take Saturday against Green Bay, for example. The Penguins may have come up short in a tight, late-game situation against the Phoenix, but YSU learned from that and put it into practice on Wednesday night.

Sophia Gregory’s tip-in at the buzzer forced overtime, and the Penguins rode the juice and adrenaline from that play at the end of regulation to beat Robert Morris 69-62 in an instant classic at Zidian Family Arena for YSU’s first overtime win at home since 2018.

“I know it wasn’t the outcome that we wanted on Saturday, that anybody wanted, but we needed to be in a moment like that for this to happen,” head coach Melissa Jackson said. “For us to be in the film room on Monday and walk through that and talk through that, and for us to spend two days on late-game situations, because I really thought that this game could be another one that comes down to the wire.

“What we went through on Saturday really helped us in this game, and our kids grew up. They grew up today.”

Gregory’s game-tying tip-in was only made possible by how YSU closed things out in regulation.

With 3:37 to go, the Penguins trailed the Colonials 51-44. They had to scrap and grind for every point after struggling offensively for most of the night, but a 7-0 run allowed YSU to tie things up with 13 seconds left.

Erica King started the rally with a floater, Sarah Baker made a free throw, Casey Santoro finished a layup and Gregory made two free throws during the Penguins’ comeback.

“Our keyword this year is grit, and I feel like we really showed that,” Baker said. “We’ve been showing that in a lot of our games, and that’s something that we really live by. I don’t know, I just feel like we were trying to get excited about the little plays, and I think that really helped us finish out the game really strong.”

RMU had the ball out of a timeout and went to Bailey Kuhns in the paint. She posted up Dacia Lewandowski and despite help defense by the Penguins, managed to finish at the basket with 0.2 seconds left on the clock.

After review, the officials put 0.4 seconds back on the clock, and YSU took the ball out in front of its own bench after a timeout. Danielle Cameron lobbed a pass across the court and, while falling out of bounds, Gregory went up in traffic, caught it out of the air and tipped it into the basket as the buzzer sounded.

“I’ve had that play in my back pocket for a long time. Maybe used it once in my career,” Jackson said. “It’s really rewarding for us to execute it tonight. But in order for all that to happen, so many things have to go well. You have to have an unbelievable athlete like Sophia, and we do and we’re blessed to have her. We have to have an unbelievable passer like Dani, who’s a freshman and, in that situation, literally put it right in the perfect spot.

“Then the other three players are all decoys, and they have to execute their role. For our young team in that moment, to have that high level of execution, really speaks of our basketball IQ and where this team is headed. So I’m really just happy that thing went in.”

The Penguins all mobbed Gregory on the floor, and after the officials reviewed it, gathered themselves to prepare for overtime.

“I’ve been put in that situation before, last year, and it actually didn’t go through,” Gregory said. “I was pretty calm. I knew what I had to do, and it was either going to go in or it wasn’t. You can’t think too much about it. I knew Dani was going to make a good pass, but actually seeing it go through was pretty exciting. I don’t want to say I expected it or didn’t expect it, I was just kind of going with it, so it was pretty exciting.”

The adrenaline from Gregory’s shot and the way it closed things out in regulation gave YSU a second wind in overtime, and the Penguins rode that momentum during the extra period.

Kuhns made a free throw to open the scoring for the Colonials in OT, but YSU went on an 8-0 run to take a seven-point lead. Santoro then helped the Penguins close things out at the free-throw line in the final minute to hold off RMU.

“It definitely helped give us a second energy source,” Baker said. “Sophia’s play was awesome. Like I was telling her, she’s so clutch. I think that really got us all excited, and it really helped with our momentum coming into overtime. We just played so well off each other. We locked down on defense, and we did what we needed to do.”

Baker paced the Penguins with 21 points, while Gregory had her third double-double this season with 15 points and 16 rebounds. King also chipped in 12 points.

RMU battled foul trouble for most of the day and had four different players foul out. Before her night ended in overtime, Myriam Traore finished with 20 points to lead the Colonials.

“I am so proud of this team for how aggressive they were,” Jackson said. “Night and day from when we played them at their place. We didn’t back down in that fourth quarter, and then we certainly didn’t back down in overtime.”

With a 1.5-game lead for second place in the Horizon League standings, YSU now heads out on the road for a three-game road trip that begins Sunday at 1 p.m. at IU Indy.