CSU, UIC and YSU Win on Thursday Night

Women's Basketball Scoreboard (Jan. 16)
Cleveland State 73, Milwaukee 63
UIC 83, Detroit 67
Youngstown State 66, Green Bay 57

Cleveland State 73, Milwaukee 63
For just the second time in program history the Cleveland State women's basketball team stands at 3-0 in Horizon League play, following a 73-63 victory over Milwaukee Thursday evening. The Vikings, who are now 8-8 overall, were paced by junior Imani Gordon who notched her third straight double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Along with Gordon, CSU has two other players post double-digit points – Kiersten Green with 25 and Cori Coleman with 17. This trio accounted for 62 of Cleveland State's 73 points on the night. Adesuwa Aideyman added five points for the Vikings, while Khayla Livingston and Olivia Voskuhl each had three.

"This team is really showing that they have matured over the first part of the season and can now handle tough games down the stretch – as you can see with tonight's victory," head coach Kate Peterson Abiad said. "We came into this year knowing and remembering how our games came out against Milwaukee last year and we didn't want the same thing to happen again. Milwaukee definitely gives us a tough matchup on the defensive end, and we knew we were going to have to battle on the inside in order to come away with the victory. We hit some big free throws down the stretch and we stayed confident in the closing minutes, allowing us to play a complete game and get the win."

The Vikings got out a strong start during the opening half, controlling the game for all but 37 seconds, going into the halftime break with an eight-point lead, 36-28.

During the opening minutes of the second half, Cleveland State went on a 5-2 run extending their lead to double-digits for the fourth time at the 41-30 mark with 18:35 remaining. The Vikings were then able to hold at least a seven-point lead over the next 4:22 until Milwaukee posted a 7-0 run, closing the gap to just three points (52-49) with 11:49 left to play.

"We went through a period where we were having difficulty making stops, and on the other end of the court we had four consecutive possessions with a turnover," Peterson Abiad said. "Earlier in the game when we weren't getting stops we were still able to score, but when we stopped scoring it became much more evident that we were struggling on the defensive end. We were finally able to get our momentum back though with a three-pointer from Cori and from that point forward I could tell that we were going to be alright."

After being held scoreless for over three minutes, the Vikings were able to stop the Panther run with a Coleman three-pointer at the 10:37 mark, giving CSU a six point lead at 55-49. The three-pointer was Coleman's third of the game – marking her sixth game this season with three or more three-pointers.

Following Coleman's converted three-pointer, the Vikings tallied a 7-0 run, extending their lead to 62-49 with just under eight minutes left to play. The Panthers weren't done yet though, as they made another push with a 12-3 run over a four-minute span to pull within four points (65-61) with just 2:38 left on the clock.

Over the final 1:39 Cleveland State was able to outscore the Panthers 8-2, including an 8-for-10 performance from the free throw line, earning the 10-point victory.

For the third straight game the Vikings eclipsed the 40-rebound mark, and outrebounded their opponent – finishing tonight's game with 42 boards. Gordon had a team-high 10 rebounds, while Haley Schmitt grabbed eight and Livingston tallied five.

UIC 83, Detroit 67
The UIC women's basketball team (12-4, 1-2 HL) picked up its first Horizon League victory Thursday (Jan. 16) with an 83-67 road win over Detroit (3-14, 0-4 HL) at Calihan Hall. Terri Bender (20 points, 11 assists, seven rebounds and five steals) led five Flames in double-figures with her first career double-double.

The Flames' 12-4 overall record is the best 16-game start in the Division I era (1980-present). Ruvanna Campbell (13 points and 12 rebounds) picked up her ninth double-double of the season while Katie Hannemann had 14 points and nine rebounds.

Emily Kobel made 5-of-5 attempts from beyond the arc and finished with 17 points. Rachel Story scored nine second-half points and finished with 11.

“Detroit came out red hot and we could not slow them down early on,” said UIC head coach Regina Miller. “We started to be more aggressive on defense and used our size to win battles inside the paint. Terri (Bender) sparked our defensive effort and the turnovers we caused helped our offense get rolling.”

UIC out-rebounded Detroit 48-23 and collected a season-high 17 steals. The Flames are 12-1 this season when winning the battle on the boards. UIC tied a season high with 23 offensive rebounds and tallied 18 second-chance points.

UIC forced a season-high 23 turnovers and scored 28 points off Detroit’s miscues. The Flames scored 44 points in the paint and allowed a season-low two offensive rebounds. Led by Kobel’s performance, UIC shot 44 percent from three-point range (8-of-18).

Detroit took its biggest lead of the contest (20-12) on Brie Wilcox’s three-pointer with 13:57 remaining in the first half. UIC went on a 10-2 run to tie the game at 22-22 with 10:27 before halftime. A 33-33 tie with 3:07 left turned into a 40-33 halftime lead following a 7-0 UIC run to close out the half.

UDM trimmed the UIC lead to 42-36 with 19:27 left in the game but that is the closest the Titans would get to the Flames. UIC hit 4-of-5 triples and 48 percent of its shots (18-of-37) in the second half to pull away from Detroit.

Bender set career highs in assists (11), made field goals (9) and field goal attempts (23). She picked up her first 20-point performance of the season and third 20-point effort of her career.

Bender fell two points shy of her career high of 22 set against Valpo last year (1/19/13). Bender collected five steals for the second straight contest and owns 37 steals over the last ten games (3.7 spg).

Kobel played all 40 minutes and tied career highs in points (17), three-pointers (5) and steals (3). She also grabbed eigth rebounds and hit 2-of-2 free throws. Kobel is shooting 82 percent (14-of-17) from the charity stripe this season.

The last perfect UIC three-point performance came from Bender (3-of-3) on Jan. 12, 2013 against Loyola Chicago. Kobel now owns 121 career made three-pointers and passed Shamiea Green (2007-12) into seventh place all-time in program history.

Campbell collected her first double-double since Jan. 3 against Roosevelt. It was also her team-high 15th double-digit effort of the season. Hannemann picked up her 39th career double-digit performance while Story has been in double-figures in 17 straight contests dating back to last season.

Youngstown State 66, Green Bay 57
The Youngstown State women's basketball team used a strong team effort, and a career-high 20 points from freshman Jenna Hirsch, to defeat Green Bay for the first time in 14 tries at the Beeghly Center, 66-57, on Thursday night.

YSU took a 21-18 lead with 6:47 remaining in the first half and never trailed again to improve to 7-9 on the campaign and start Horizon League play with three consecutive wins. Green Bay drops to 8-7 and 1-2 having dropped consecutive conference tilts. It marks the first time in school history that the Penguins open an HL campaign with three consecutive wins. It also snaps a 17-game losing streak to the Phoenix dating back to 2005.

The Penguins made hay from the free-throw line making 24-of-33 attempts while the Phoenix converted 8-of-12 from the charity stripe in the second half. The Guins had 41 points second-half points, 21 of which came from the free-throw line.

YSU built a 25-18 lead at halftime taking advantage of some impressive defense. The Guins ended up scoring the final 10 points of the half as Green Bay went without a point for the final 11:01.

To open the second half, YSU jumped out to a 37-27 lead when Monica Touvelle drained 3-pointers on two straight possessions.

Green Bay chipped the lead down to 39-36 with 8:19 left but the Guins reeled off eight straight points to push the advantage up to 47-36 with 6:56 remaining.

The Phoenix trimmed the deficit back to 52-47 following an Ellen Edison 3-pointer with 4:16 remaining but YSU went on an 11-0 run in a span of 2:14 to put the game out of reach at 63-47.

Hirsch was 10-of-12 from the free-throw line and 4-of-11 from the field for her 20 points. Touvelle ended up with 15 points off the bench on 4-of-4 shooting and was 4-of-5 from the free-throw line. Liz Hornberger had 11.

The first half featured all five ties and all six lead changes. The last tie was at 18 with 7:42 left in the period. The Phoenix charged out of the game to take an 11-6 lead just over six minutes into the contest, but YSU withered the storm and scored five straight tying the game at 11.

Green Bay started the contest making four of its first 12 shots, but made one of its final 10 shots to end the half. The Phoenix attempted 22 field goals, 17 of which came from behind the 3-point arc. For the half, it shot 22.7 percent.

Both teams had difficultly holding onto the ball as they combined for 28 turnovers, 15 of which came by Green Bay.

In the stanza, YSU made 9-of-21 from the field (42.9 percent) and was 4-for-10 from behind the 3-point line. For the game, YSU was 17-of-38 (44.7 percent) and Green Bay was 20-of-64 (31.3 percent). Megan Lukan had a double-double for Green Bay with 19 points and 11 rebounds.