Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes. YSU’s Malia Magestro moves past a Lakers defender during the first half on Tuesday at the Beeghly Center. Magestro finished with a career-high 25 points in the victory.
YOUNGSTOWN — Having played in 110 games across five seasons, Malia Magestro has plenty of experience at the Division I level.
With that experience comes knowledge, and on Tuesday whenever Youngstown State needed a basket, Magestro was there to answer the call, as she finished with a career-high 25 points in the Penguins’ 64-56 victory over Mercyhurst on Kids Day at the Beeghly Center.
“I thought she was fantastic. Obviously a career-high, which is great, but she was so locked in defensively,” head coach Melissa Jackson said. “She continued to shoot the ball and hit timely shots. It comes from experience, it comes from playing in big games in a tough environment. She’s been pushed in practice this week, and she has 100% responded in such a positive way, and I love how she did it on both sides of the ball today.”
At halftime, Magestro was just 3-for-10 from the floor with seven points. But she kept shooting, and was 7-for-9 for 18 points in the second half.
YSU needed every one of those shots, too.
After trailing by six at the break, the Lakers opened the third quarter on an 8-1 run to take their first and only lead of the game. But Magestro stopped the bleeding for the Penguins with a pair of threes on back-to-back possessions.
“We switched our defense a little bit, saw that didn’t work, so we switched back,” Magestro said. “Fixed that after those first couple baskets.”
Then, she hit a long two-pointer near the end of the third quarter when YSU was clinging to a three-point lead.
Magestro also helped the Penguins close things out down the stretch. In the final four minutes, she had a steal and fastbreak layup and hit another pair of threes to give YSU a late double-digit lead.
“I think just us pushing the ball with the point guard throwing it up — the point guards were really good today — pushing it in transition and finding me on offense because I’m running the lanes,” Magestro said. “So that, and the confidence that coach Jackson has in me, I think really helped me make those key shots today.”
YSU’s leading scorer, Jewel Watkins, was in foul trouble for a significant portion of the second half. She picked up her third foul at the 4:00 mark of the third quarter and didn’t return until the last few minutes of the game.
“Tonight was a tough night for Jewel, in all honesty,” Jackson said. “I’m proud of her for how she responded, she came back (in) and hit a big shot and got a big defensive play. But today was not an easy day for her personally.”
But in Watkins’ absence, Faith Burch and Abby Liber picked up the slack and upped their scoring production.
The pair each finished in double figures, with Liber recording 10 points and nine rebounds and Burch scoring 12 points.
“Honestly, part of my job for this team is to bring energy no matter what,” Burch said. “I feel like we knew some things weren’t going our way, so I made eye contact with Abby and said, ‘Let’s go,’ and I feel like we executed really well.”
The Penguins had several cold stretches on offense that contributed to their inability to pull away from Mercyhurst. The longest was a seven-minute stretch during the first half where YSU was 1-for-15 from the floor.
That’s when the Penguins’ defense was key, as YSU forced the Lakers into 18 turnovers, including 11 steals.
“It creates energy, and it creates the offensive pace that we want to play at,” Jackson said. “When teams are sending that many people back, it’s a little more difficult for us to get what we want in transition. So for us to create those steals, and for us to be able to convert them — I thought we missed a couple bunnies tonight, so we gotta be able to finish better. But our defense definitely created our transition offense today.”
Bailey Kuhns was the only Laker to finish in double figures, scoring 22 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter.
The Penguins now head out on the road for the first time this season.
They’ll travel to face Bucknell on Saturday, before making a trip across the state to take on Xavier on Nov. 26. YSU then ends the month by heading to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to play Southern Indiana and Towson in the Puerto Rico Clasico.
“I was very intentional about how I wanted to have four home games. The goal was to be 4-0, and we sit here today at 4-0, so very happy with that,” Jackson said. “But we’ve gotta take it one game at a time. It’s a different animal on the road. We have to be laser-focused. I think we’ll rely a lot on our leadership, and then our young kids will continue to come along over these next four games.”