Posts Tagged ‘Macey Nortey’

The last time Youngstown State University beat Cleveland State was January 27, 2007.  On the last day of 2011, the Lady Penguins put together a good team effort, defeating the Vikings, 70-48, and headed into 2012 tied for first in the conference at 1-0.  It also marked the first time YSU has won a conference opener since 2008.  It’s a shame that 2011 is almost over, a year that will surely be earmarked as a giant step forward for the Lady Penguins basketball program.

In the first half, the Penguins opened up with a 14-2 run with 11:27 left in the half. Monica Touvelle (below) went 4-4 from three-point range and led all scorers with YSU heading to their locker room ahead comfortably, 35-22.  Brandi Brown had seven rebounds and six points in a half that saw all active members of the Lady Penguins see some minutes.

“It’s nice to get everyone involved”, remarked Coach Bob Boldon after the game. “They have all done the work in practice all week and deserve to be on the floor.”

In the second half, the Penguins started strong and held a 48-34 lead with 10:54 remaining in the contest.  Boldon’s offense looked lethal at times with just a couple of lapses in the second half.  Cleveland State cut the YSU lead to eleven at 50-39 with 9:23 left on a Shalonda Winton drive to the hoop.

An earthquake shuttered the Beeghly Center during the second half but play continued. “Was that an earthquake?” said Brown.  ” I am used to those being from California, I just thought someone fell.”

With the score 51-40, Brown drilled a three from the corner that got nothing but net. The Penguins held a 54-42 lead with five minutes to go.  Brown would extend the lead to 63-42 with just under three minutes left draining a pair of free throws after being fouled driving the length of the court with a steal.  The Vikings nevr got closer than 15 after the six minute mark of the game.

Brown finished the game with 23 points and 12 boards to notch her fifth double-double of the season and the 32nd of her career.  YSU also got an array of statistics from everyone including Touvelle’s four three-pointers, 16 points and five rebounds from Heidi Schlegel, and six assists from Macey Nortey.  The Penguins shot 42.6 from the floor and cashed in 28 more points off of Vikings turnovers.

“It feels good to go into a New Year with a win”, said Brown.  “We really executed well as a team and it was a good win for us.”

Cleveland State got 17 points from Winton and eleven more from Imani Gordon.  The Vikings slipped to 5-7 and 0-1 with the loss.

The Lady Penguins (7-5, 1-0) head West to face Butler on Thursday and Valparaiso on Saturday afternoon.

Kenya Middlebrooks scored 13 of her career-high 27 points in the final four minutes as the Youngstown State women’s basketball team rallied to defeat Akron 78-72 on Sunday afternoon at James A. Rhodes Arena.  The Penguins scored 51 points and shot 60 percent after halftime and overcame a 13-point second-half deficit to improve to 6-4 on the season. They’ve now matched their win total from last season and have won five straight road games for the first time since 1997-98. Akron dropped to 5-6.

Youngstown State trailed 60-47 with nine minutes remaining and by eight with five minutes left. Melissa Thompson hit a 3-pointer at the 4:35 mark to start the rally, and Middlebrooks made two free throws after the media timeout to make the score 67-64. Akron upped its lead to 71-65 after two Taylor Ruper free throws at the 3:30 mark, but YSU closed out the game by outscoring the Zips 13-1.

Brandi Brown‘s 3-pointer cut the deficit in half, and Middlebrooks scored the next five points to give the Penguins a 73-71 lead with 1:45 left. Ti’eshia Stubbs made 1-of-2 from the free-throw line to make the score 73-72 with just over a minute left, but Middlebrooks hit her sixth 3-pointer of the game to push the lead to 76-72 with 50 seconds remaining.

Middlebrooks had a steal on Akron’s next possession, and she rebounded Akron’s miss with just over 20 seconds remaining. She made two free throws with 6.6 seconds left for the final margin.

Brown finished with 15 points and 14 rebounds, including 10 of each in the second half. Thompson added a career-high 12 points after having 11 points total in the first nine games.  Hanna Luburgh had 20 points to lead three players in double figures for Akron.

The Penguins outshot the Zips 43.5 percent to 35.7 percent and held the rebounding edge 44-40. Youngstown State made 13 3-pointers, which was two off of the school record. Ten of those triples came on 16 attempts in the second half.  Macey Nortey and Kelsea Fickiesen combined for 11 of YSU’s 19 assists.

Youngstown State battled through a sloppy first half to only trail by four at halftime. The Penguins scored 10 straight points early in the period but trailed by as many as nine before closing the gap late.  Akron hit a triple on the first possession of the game, but the Penguins scored the next 10 points to take a 10-3 lead on a Middlebrooks trey with 17:15 remaining.  After the fast start, YSU got out of sync offensively and committed eight turnovers in the first nine minutes. Akron used that to its advantage and went on a 12-1 run to go up 15-11 with 8:04 left.

Youngstown State’s next game will be at Stony Brook on Dec. 27 at 7 p.m.  Merry Christmas Lady Penguins!

*Story Courtesy of YSU Sports

One of the best teams on the Youngstown State Lady Penguins schedule this season is Bowling Green.  Tuesday, the Falcons rolled into town and faced a very determined Penguins team.  In a gutsy showing, the Penguins fell 73-61 to the Falcons, but the game was very competitive until BG pulled away at the end.

“I was disappointed with our free throw effort tonight”, said Penguins Coach Bob Boldon.  “I thought we played with good energy, just not long enough.  We played terrible defense the last five minutes and did not deserve to win.”

In the first half, Bowling Green asserted a pretty good size height advantage.  Alexis Rogers and Brandi Brown (both pictured above) are both All-American potential players.  Rogers had  strong first half with 14 points and seven rebounds.  Brown had to play cautiously and had three fouls by intermission.  The Eagles showed good balance working the ball inside and out as they held a 32-27 lead at the break.

The Lady Penguins worked hard to stay close to the Falcons in the second half. Kelsea Fickiesen hit a pair of free throws to make it a 42-39 game.  Brown then gathered an offensive rebound and tallied a put-back to trim the deficit to one point.  Devan Matkin gave the Penguins a two-point lead, 46-44, at the 13:04 mark when she drilled a three on the right wing.

Brown drilled a three with just over nine minutes left in the game to give YSU a 55-54 lead.  She later got to the line with 5:45 left in the game and hit two free throws to keep YSU at arms length of the lad, at 60-59.  However, the Falcons got a couple of buckets to take a 66-59 lead with 3:57 left.

“We have grown a lot”, said Brown.  “We aren’t focusing on competing like we were last year, we are now focused on winning games.  We did not play a full 40 minutes and lacked energy and intensity.”

The Penguins (4-4) got 15 points out of Kenya Middlebrooks (above).  The senior has been a consistent contributor on offense all season for the Penguins thus far.  Brown finished the game with 15 points and seven rebounds.  YSU got solid bench play, something Coach Boldon has strived to improve on this season.  The Penguins reserves poured in 23 points.

Bowling Green got a big night out of Rogers who finished the game with 23 points and 10 rebounds.  Chrissy Steffen chipped in with 20 for the Falcons (5-2).  As a team, Bowling Green shot 41% from the floor.

The Penguins now head to Athens to take on the Bobcats of Ohio University on Friday.  As a good mark of just how much better this team is, the Penguins defeated Western Michigan by 25 last week, their first 20+ point win since 2006.  Conversely, since that 2006 win over Buffalo, the Penguins lost 46 times by more than 20.

Coming off of a Thanksgiving weekend road trip, Youngstown State returned to the Beeghly Center and showed no sign of any road fatigue.  The Penguins seized an early lead and coasted to a 80-55 victory over MAC-opponent, Western Michigan to go to 4-3 on the season.  Last season, the Penguins put up a total of six wins.  To have four in seven games says a lot about just how far the program has moved forward in such a short time.

The win was the first for YSU at home this season.  It was also the first time a Lady Penguins team has won by more than 20 points since 2006, when they defeated Buffalo by 34.

Youngstown State never trailed in the game.  In the first half, they had a lead as big as 13 points with 7:52 until the break.  The most impressive part about the first half was that the Penguins scored 30 points and Brandi Brown only had two of them.  The knock against the Penguins going into this season (picked to finish 10th out of 10 teams), was that there was no balance around Brown.  Those same voters then turned around and elected Brown as the Horizon League Preseason Player of The Year.  The fact that the Lady Penguins could account for 28 points in a half without Brown disqualifies all of the preseason inaccuracies and negative speculation of the league voters.

In the first half, Monica Touvelle and Liz Hornberger had six points each. Tieara Jones and Devan Matkin had four each, and Macey Nortey and Heidi Schlegel had three each – pretty balanced scoring.  Brown did make her presence known with eight rebounds.

Brown (above), who played most of the game with her left nostril stuffed full of gauze, was used sparingly in the second half.  She scored six points in the first five minutes of the second half and finished the game with 12 points and 14 rebounds in just 30 minutes.  It didn’t seem like a double-double, but the numbers don’t lie.

“Last year, it was pretty much as Brandi goes, this team goes”, remarked Coach Bob Boldon.  “We play better when we play more balanced.  With all of the attention on Brandi, it is nice to see the other players step up.  We have played good offensive games, and we have played good defensive games.  This was the first time this year we had both.”

With 9:10 left in the game, Youngstown State increased their lead to 61-34 on a couple of threes by Schlegel.  The Penguins finished with 80 balanced points.

“I was really happy that we played so well as a team”, said Schlegel.  “We had four players in double figures and we are playing as a team rather than individuals.  Off the floor, we are really gelling as a team and that is helping us on the court.”

The Penguins got 15 points out of Schlegel.  It is nice to see her playing instead of sitting, she adds another dimension and plays bigger than her size.  Nortey had a very solid night finishing the game with 11 points and 6 assists, was 7-9 from the free throw line, 2-3 from the floor, had three steals, and even gathered a rebound.

Brown and Nortey, native Californians, recently traveled home to play a couple of games over the holiday weekend.  Sports information director for basketball, John Vogel, talked about the trip and spending time with both families.

“It was a very rewarding Thanksgiving weekend on the road”, commented Vogel.  We spent tome with both Macey and Brandi’s families and some of the other parents made the trip.  It was nice to see that kind of support that far away from home and the players enjoyed it as much as the parents who made the trip.”

The Penguins welcome Bowling Green as part of a doubleheader on December 6 at Beeghly Center.  Tipoff for that game is at 5:15.

Youngstown State junior forward Brandi Brown cemented herself among the best players to ever wear YSU red and white and led the Penguins to a 64-50 win over LMU in front of an enthusiastic group of supporters on Friday.  Brown’s 1,000th career point gave the Penguins a 7-6 lead, and they never trailed again. Brown, who grew up about an hour from Los Angeles, finished with a game-high 19 points and 14 rebounds.

YSU sophomore Heidi Schlegel joined Brown in a double-double, posting 17 points and a career-high 10 rebounds.

The Penguins will play the winner between Northern Iowa and Wyoming on Saturday at approximately 6:15 p.m. Eastern.

YSU led by double digits for most of the second half, but LMU cut the deficit to 43-36 with 12:23 left. Brown’s layup on a pass from Los Angeles native Macey Nortey put YSU up nine on the next possession, and the Penguins went on to score seven straight points.

YSU’s biggest lead came on Brown’s final bucket of the game. Her layup at the 3:44 mark on a pass from Schlegel capped another seven-point run that put the Penguins up 62-44.  Schlegel had 13 points and five rebounds in the second half, and Brown matched her with 13 points in the final 20 minutes. Schlegel also had a game-high five assists.  Kenya Middlebrooks had 14 points and hit four of YSU”s eight 3-pointers.

YSU outshot LMU 40.4 percent to 31.7 percent and outscored the Lions 20-8 off turnovers.

Brown’s 1,000th point came from the free-throw line with 15:06 left in the first half, and it gave the Penguins their first lead at 7-6. YSU didn’t trail again, and a Kelsea Fickieson lay-up gave the Penguins a 16-10 advantage with 12:33 remaining.

A Middlebrooks triple gave the Penguins their first double-digit lead with 7:06 left, and her third 3-pointer of the period put YSU up 33-20 at the 3:41 mark. That completed a 12-4 run for the Penguins during which they held LMU without a field goal for five minutes. Middlebrooks led all scorers with 11 points in the first half, and the senior had three of the Penguins’ five 3-pointers in the period. Brown had six points and nine rebounds. YSU shot 37 percent as a team to offset 11 turnovers.

The Youngstown State women’s basketball team played well enough defensively but shot just 19.6 percent in a 69-37 loss at West Virginia in the 2011-12 season opener on Friday at the WVU Coliseum.

The Penguins trailed 26-15 at halftime because of a strong defensive effort that held the Mountaineers to 30-percent shooting. WVU shot 59.3 percent in the second half in outscoring the Guins 43-22 in the final 20 minutes.

WVU, which held a big size advantage, posted 12 blocks. Sophomore guard Taylor Palmer had 33 points on 12-of-23 shooting, including 8-for-16 from beyond the arc. The rest of the Mountaineers combined to go 0-for-10 from 3-point range.

Brandi Brown had 12 points and eight rebounds for Youngstown State but was just 3-for-15 from the field. Monica Touvelle, Heidi Schlegel and Melissa Thompson had five points apiece.

YSU dug itself a 13-0 hole until Touvelle’s 3-pointer with 12:50 remaining broke the scoreless stretch. WVU led by double digits until Macey Nortey scored on YSU’s first possession of the second half. That made the score 26-17, but WVU scored the next 10 points and held the Penguins scoreless until the 15:45 mark.

Youngstown State will stay in Morgantown tonight before heading to Fort Wayne, Ind., to play IPFW on Sunday.

The same people who vote on where Youngstown State would finish in the Horizon League this season, also vote for who the best player in the conference is.  Brandi Brown was named the preseason Horizon League Player of The Year, but her team was picked, by the same people, to finish tenth out of ten teams.  Second year coach, Bob Boldon, enters this season optimistic that his team is better for the opening tip this season than they were a year ago.  Down the stretch, the Lady Penguins were hot, and nobody wanted to play them because they came around a corner few thought they could.  The strong finish included three home wins and a buzzer loss in the opening round of the Horizon League Tournament.

This just in – Brandi Brown is really good.  The thing that the Penguins need is consistency from her supporting cast to be successful.  Brown became the first scoring leader in conference history to not be voted onto the league’s first team, thus the Penguins will enter this season with sizeable chips on their shoulders.  Is it a case of as Brown goes, so do the Penguins?

“Yes, that is true”, remarked Boldon. “Last year, Brandi shot the ball 150 to 200 times more than anybody else.  I don’t know if it will be that drastic this year, but she is going to shoot the ball more than anyone else is, Brandi is a really good player.  We need to more consistently provide her help.  It seems that last year when a couple of other players stepped up and had good games, we won.  Brandi is still going to take the last shot, everything will run through her. We still need to improve on scoring when she doesn’t have the ball. She will be a big part of everything until she graduates.”

“We all felt responsible for Brandi not being on the first team last year simply because we underachieved as a team,” Boldon said. “(Being picked to finish 10th) hurt some people’s feelings because they felt like they turned the corner a little bit,” Boldon said. “They thought we should have gotten some more respect from the voters. Whatever fuels us is good for me. There were some people who felt like we weren’t ‘that team’ anymore.”

The Penguins lost Boki Dimitrov to graduation.  Makala Gasparek and Maryum Jenkins will not be playing this year either.  Enter a new group of players, to be custom-molded by Boldon and tidy up a slick spread-motion system. Newcomers Kelsea Fickiesen and Ashley Lawson add some depth at the guard positions.  Junior transfer Devan Matkin further deepens the guard pool.  Second-year guard Melissa Thompson should see more time this season.

Familiar faces to continue the march forward include Kenya Middlebrooks and Liz Hornberger.  Middlebrooks, a senior, and Hornberger, a sophomore, both ranked in the league’s top-10 in three point shooting percentage.   Another sophomore, Monica Touvelle, returns with a wealth of experience, making appearances in all 30 games last season.  Heidi Schlegel could really be a big player for Boldon.  The redshirt freshman played in the first seven games before injuring her foot and missing the remainder of the 2010-11 campaign.

Tiera Jones and Macey Nortey, both seniors, round out Boldon’s active roster.  Jones really came on last year and was very productive when she could stay out of foul trouble.  Nortey is a ball of energy and a vocal presence with a do-what-it-takes attitude.  They should both play a role in the fortunes of this year’s campaign.

“We want to continue to improve on what we did last year”, said Boldon. “The new people we brought in are good shooters and we spent time this offseason working with the players who are returning, and as a result, they have become better shooters as well.  It is a collective movement.”

“There are still a multitude of things that we can teach the players”, said Boldon.  “However, it has been easier this season because the system base was already installed, so we are at a higher starting point.  Our returning players do not know it all, but the turnaround time with them will be quicker this season.  It is more about refreshing them than starting from scratch.”

Boldon’s team opens the season on Friday night at West Virginia.  They then travel to IPFW and Bucknell before returning home for the 2011 home opener against American University on November 21.  This team will not compete for an outright championship this season, however, I would be surprised if they did not win at least 13 games. This year will be more about being competitive and winning games they should win.  With the lack of respect shown by that grand voting panel of Horizon League Wizardry, that means they will finish about 2-28…  I say 14-16.  Hopefully better.

Boldon outlined his short and long-term goals.

“Long term, you start to think about the Horizon League Tournament.  You want to try to get yourself into a favorable position, out of that seven, eight, nine, or ten slot.  We would love to be in a position to host a home game in the tournament.  Short term, we failed to build off of our successes when we had them last year.  We had a little success and got so happy with ourselves that we did not get better.”

You will not meet a more personable group than the Youngstown State University Women’s Basketball Coaching Staff. They are all very genuine, real, and fun people to talk with.  John Vogel, who handles the women’s basketball program from a sports information director position was gracious enough to tape the roundtable interview I got to conduct.  Topics discussed are the recruiting process, Brandi Brown being overlooked on postseason awards, and a fun segment where the coaches have to pinpoint what their peers like and dislike.

Big thanks to Mr. Vogel for not only creating this opportunity, but for also being very helpful with my requests.  Also, a million thanks to Coach Bob Boldon for being a guy who is always candid and approachable.  This was my first real conversation of any kind with the assistants.  Pictured above are John Cullen, Kate Schrader, and Tavares Jackson.  Not pictured but included in the video is Jen Theissen.

Just before this interview was conducted, these coaches were working with a few of the players on the last day of workouts until August.  To watch how they coach as a group was fun.  Coach Boldon is kind of an overseer and delegates authority for an assistant to watch a defender and another coach to monitor an offensive player.  The other assistants usually encourage the players working in the various drills.  The dedication of this staff is going to put bodies in seats over the next couple of years.

Also, a new piece of equipment was in use at practice.  As a player shoots a three-point shot, a three foot high box announces the arc, or highest point, that the ball hits on its way to the basket.  Coach Theissen explained that the machine would register different numbers based on factors such as a players size.  For example, Macey Nortey and  Tieara Jones are about a foot different in stature meaning their arc would be different.  Very nice piece of equipment!

Thanks again to all who participated!

Youngstown State University finished the season on a high note and kept their momentum heading into the Horizon League Tournament as they handled Loyola, 84-65, on Senior Day.  Brandi Brown was sensational in the win, scoring 27 points and grabbing seven rebounds.  This was a physical game, especially the first half, when three players had to leave the contest injured, one being Boki Dimitrov.

Bojana Dimitrov was honored as the lone senior player before the game and had to leave the game when she sprained her ankle with 11:31 left in the first half.  Not the storybook ending anyone would have wished for the bubbly Serbian in her last home game.  Brown caught an inadvertent elbow to the face while contesting a shot and would miss a stretch of just over seven minutes for the Penguins, who proved worthy even without Brown holding a 13-11 lead while she was attended to.  When she came back with what looked like a half-roll of Charmin in her nose (see top picture), Brown made up for lost time.  In the second half, she moved into 18th on the YSU all-time scoring list, quite an accomplishment for just a sophomore.

Brown impacted the game as soon as she returned scoring  12 and extending her consecutive free throws made streak to 17-17 on a 5-5 first half.  The streak would end at 17 as she missed the first of two charity tosses in the second half.  With 13:25 left in the game, Brown hit a couple more free throws to put YSU comfortably ahead, 52-38.  Monica Albano did her best to keep Loyola in the game when she buried a three with 10:59 left in the game to cut the YSU lead to 54-43.

Kenya Middlebrooks and Liz Hornberger each hit a three to extend the Penguin lead to 66-55 with 5:58 left in the game.  Albano again responded for Loyola hitting another three from the corner to cut the lead to 66-58.  The Penguins stretched their lead to 80-62 on a pair of free throws from Macey Nortey with 1:38 left in the game.

“Our intensity at practice has really kicked up”, said Hornberger after the game.  “Brandi always shows up and if the rest of the team intensity can stay where it is, we can play with anyone in the league.  We are going into the tournament hot.”

YSU got big numbers from Brown again as she set a few more records.  Brown finished the game with 27 points and moved into 18th all-time on the scoring list.  She also recorded the fifth highest point total in a season.  Hornberger had a career high in points with 12, all threes, and has given some quality minutes the last few games.  Tieara Jones played a solid game recording 11 rebounds to go with her 11 points.  Monica Touvelle (above) and Kenya Middlebrooks each hit four threes.  For Touvelle, the twelve points was a career-high.  In fact, five Penguins hitting double figures had not happened since 2004.

With the win, Youngstown State nabbed their second in a row to end the regular season and improved to 6-23 and 4-14 in the Horizon League.  The 84 points scored was the highest total for the Penguins offense this season who shot a blazing 53.8% from the floor in the second half.

Loyola got a great effort from Monica Albano who finished the game with 34 points.  The Ramblers dipped to 11-18 and 5-13 in the Horizon League.

Coach Bob Boldon talked about the constant improvement and expectations heading into the league tournament.  “The way our offense is run, it takes time to pick things up and develop.  We are better than we were last month and this is when you want the team to be playing their best basketball.  It is better to be a bottom team in a tournament and make crazy things happen, than being one of the good teams and having all of the crazy stuff happen to you.”

Detroit went on a big run in the first half and scored 12 of the final 14 points of the game to beat the Youngstown State women’s basketball team 52-43 on Thursday evening at Calihan Hall.

Brandi Brown scored 24 points and grabbed 15 rebounds for Youngstown State, which led 41-40 with 7:26 remaining. No Penguin other than Brown scored in the final 14 minutes.

Detroit shot just 33.3 percent and committed 10 more turnovers than the Penguins but held a 55-31 edge in rebounding.

Dominique Dixon came off the bench to score 12 points to lead Detroit, and she scored six straight points for the Titans as they started their final push. Britney Murphy also had 11 off the bench, and Yar Shayok grabbed 16 rebounds despite playing in foul trouble most of the night.

YSU shot 25 percent overall and 26.1 percent from 3-point range. The Penguins had just five turnovers.  The Titans went on a 17-2 run over four-and-a-half minutes in the first half as they turned a nine-point deficit into a 30-25 lead at halftime.

Detroit started 2-for-11 as YSU built a 13-4 lead. Brown scored her 10th point of the contest with 14:44 remaining to give the Guins a nine-point advantage. YSU then went without a field goal for almost five minutes, but Detroit was only able to trim the deficit down to 13-7.

Tieara Jones hit a free throw, and Brown’s jumper put the Penguins up 16-7 with 10:01 left. Detroit then went on a 17-2 run and took its first lead when Dixon hit a jumper with 3:38 left. The Titans ended up going ahead 24-18 at the 2:22 mark before Brown’s jumper off a good post move stopped the long drought.

Detroit led by as many as eight in the half before Macey Nortey hit both of her one-and-one free throws with 0.7 seconds left to make the score 30-25 at the break.  The Titans hit just five of their first 20 attempts from the field, but they closed out the half by making seven of their last eight shots.

Detroit took its largest lead of the game at 36-27 with 16:54 remaining, but the Titans did not score again for nearly nine minutes as YSU went on a 10-0 run to go up 37-36. Neither team led by more than one until Dixon ended a 12-and-a-half minute field-goal drought the Titans that put them up 44-41 with 4:19 to play.

Dixon stole a pass and hit a lay-up under Detroit’s basket to put the Titans up 46-41, and Brown hit a jumper on YSU’s next possession to end a four-and-a-half minute drought with 2:58 remaining. The Penguins did not score again, and Detroit scored the final six points.

Youngstown State will play at Wright State on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. The game was originally scheduled to tip at 2 p.m. but was moved up a half hour earlier this week.