Magestro Leads Penguins Past Golden Grizzlies 85-79

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Play-by-play: Joey Hayes

Color: Harjun Buttar

Studio: Gavin Smilowski

Sideline Reporter: Drew Allison

The Oakland Golden Grizzlies fall to the visiting Youngstown State Penguins in a game where Oakland desperately needed a win. The final score was 85-79.

Oakland came into this game following a tough loss to the Northern Kentucky Norse. The Grizzlies were down 12 heading into the halftime break, and could not recover despite a good fourth quarter of shooting. 

Youngstown State came into this game off a 73-66 upset win over the surging Milwaukee Panthers. Malia Magestro shot a magical 8-14 from the floor to score 23 points, leading all scorers in the contest. She was supported by above-.500 nights from both Haley Thierry and Shay-Lee Kirby. 

Youngstown struck fast with a 6-0 start to the game, but Oakland slowly found their footing to even up the scoring 8-7 with 7:14 remaining in the first quarter. Miriam Ibezim was aggressive and got four difficult points in the paint, and Alexis Johnson hit the Penguins where it hurts with a three-pointer. Youngstown’s Magestro and Kirby left their mark on the first quarter and hit their shots to give the Penguins a slight edge heading into the quarter break. 

Dena Jarrells of Youngstown State hit a crowd-silencing three to start the second quarter, followed by continued top-notch play by Magestro to make the score 31-23 with over half the quarter left to play. Oakland’s offense was able to string together a nice set of shots to make the score 31-29 before the Penguins went on a 10-2 run to make the score 41-31. Free throws seemed to be a recurring problem for Oakland, with Youngstown fouling frequently to end the second quarter and Oakland only able to convert half of their points from the line. The Penguins carried a 42-36 edge over Oakland heading into halftime.

Oakland’s patented slow third quarter was met with the Penguins striking fast and hard. Four different shooters contributed to Youngstown’s early advantage. The Penguins made it a double-digit lead at the 6:49 mark,  before Oakland cut into the lead to tie the contest up off a fastbreak layup by Brooke Quarles-Daniels.A Maddy Skorupski three gave Oakland a short-lived lead, which Youngstown quickly took away and made a 60-57 margin heading into the final frame.

An early layup by Quarles-Daniels made the game the slimmest of margins before Youngstown caught fire to score 10 unanswered points. The Grizzlies began hitting their free throws, but the Penguins had an answer for every Oakland point. Ultimately, Oakland couldn’t do enough to overcome and fell to the Penguins 85-79.

Oakland will, once again, look to pick up the pieces as they prepare to take on the Robert Morris Colonials at the OU Credit Union O’rena on Saturday, February 10th. Meanwhile, Youngstown State will prepare to finish out their Michigan road trip against the Detroit Mercy Titans, also on Saturday February 10th.

WXOU’s next broadcast will be Oakland women’s basketball vs Robert Morris on Saturday February 10th. Joey Hayes will be play-by-play, Noah Stalker will be color, and Logan Pizzurro will be in the studio. This game will be the first of a WXOU doubleheader, as shortly after the women’s game, Giovanni Moceri and Harjun Buttar will broadcast men’s basketball vs Wright State on the road at the Ervin J. Nutter Center at 7pm. Stay tuned for both games! It’s an exciting double feature on WXOU!