The Youngstown State women's basketball team went on a 15-0 run in the third quarter and went 6-for-6 from the free-throw line in the final 17 seconds to beat Milwaukee 60-56 on Saturday afternoon at the Klotsche Center.
Lindsey Mack scored a team and season-high 16 points, and she made four of those free throws in the final stretch as the Penguins topped the Panthers in Milwaukee for the first time in 2016. Lilly Ritz scored eight of her 11 points in that decisive third quarter, and Malia Magestro added 10 points that included two free throws with 3.8 seconds left that put the Penguins up by two possessions.
With the win, Youngstown State improved to 19-4 overall and 13-3 in Horizon League play, while Milwaukee dropped to 9-12 overall and 8-6 against the conference. The Penguins earned a hard-fought and character-building split in their Wisconsin trip after they battled Green Bay for 50 minutes in a double-overtime, 70-69 loss on Thursday evening. YSU has tied the school record for most Horizon League wins with 13, and it moved a half-game ahead of IUPUI for first place in the conference standings.
Mack, who scored 11 points Thursday against the Phoenix, made her first four attempts from 3-point range on Saturday. She made two in the second quarter to help the Penguins stay within striking distance, and she made two more during the 15-0 run in the third quarter. She then made all four of her free-throw attempts in the final moments after being just 2-for-2 from the line coming into the game.
Megan Walstad scored a game-high 17 points for Milwaukee, but the Penguins limited her to four points in the second half. Sydney Staver added 15, and Jada Donaldson added a career-high eight points off the bench in the first half.
Youngstown State made nine 3s in the game, two more than Milwaukee, and it held an 11-14 edge at the free-throw line.
Walstad scored Milwaukee's first six points and helped the Panthers take a 6-1 lead at the 7:38 mark of the opening quarter. YSU had two offensive rebounds on its next trip down the floor to set up a Paige Shy 3-pointer with 6:49 on the clock, and Mady Aulbach followed with a 3 to put YSU up 7-6. Shy followed with two free throws to extend the run to 8-0.
After Shy's free throws, YSU didn't score for three minutes as Milwaukee the next six points to go up 12-9. Milwaukee led by three again at 14-11 on a pull-up jumper by Miquela Santoro, and Aulbach made a free throw at the 1:19 mark to make the score 14-12 at the end of the quarter.
Seven of Milwaukee's first 17 points came from offensive rebounds, and Donaldson's 3-pointer with 8:16 left on the second-quarter clock tied the score for the first time in the game at 17. Less than four minutes later, Mack hit back-to-back 3-pointers to put YSU up 25-21, and Milwaukee scored 11 of the final 13 points of the half to take a 32-27 halftime lead.
Milwaukee extended its advantage to 38-31 when McKaela Schmelzer nailed a 3-pointer at the 8:08 mark of the third quarter, but that's when YSU went on its 15-0 run. Ritz tied the score at 38 with 5:57 on the clock on a pass from Megan Callahan, and Chelsea Olson's putback 54 seconds later gave YSU a 40-38 advantage. The Penguins held that lead the rest of the game.
Mack hit her third and fourth 3-pointers of the afternoon in just over a minute's time to increase the margin to 46-38 with 3:17 left, and Milwaukee's Emma Wittmershaus ended a scoring drought of more than seven minutes with a 3-pointer that narrowed the gap to 46-41 heading into the fourth.
Callahan hit a 3-pointer on YSU's first possession of the fourth to get the Penguin lead back to eight at 49-41, but Milwaukee scored the next seven points as the Penguins didn't score again until Magestro made a free-throw with 5:34 on the clock. YSU then held Milwaukee without a field goal for more than five minutes, and Olson's mid-range jumper at the 3:08 mark put the Penguins up 54-48. That was YSU's final field goal of the game.
Staver ended the long drought for the Panthers with a bucket with 54.1 seconds left that made the score 54-51, and Ritz came up with the biggest rebound of the game on YSU's next possession after Milwaukee got the initial stop. Magestro missed the initial attempt, and Ritz grabbed the carom and passed to Mack, who made her two attempts with 16.4 seconds remaining. Staver had a three-point play on the other end with 10.0 seconds left, and Mack was fouled again with 8.4 seconds remaining to make the score 58-54.
Walstad scored on a drive to the basket from an out-of-bounds play with 5.1 seconds left to make it a two-point game again, but Magestro iced the game with two free throws with 3.8 seconds left.
Youngstown State will continue its four-game road stretch at Cleveland State on Friday at 7 p.m.
