The women host Division II Clarion Saturday with the likelihood of equaling the second-best start of a season in school history.
A win would make them 8-1, the same as teams in 1978-79 and 1993-94. KSU’s best start was 11-1 in 2008-09.
Win No. 7: How Flashes held on to beat Duquesne 71-66
The Clarion game starts at 1 p.m. at the M.A.C. Center. Tickets are $10 for chairback general admission and $5 for bleacher seats. Students get in free with their I.D. The game will be streamed on ESPN3.
Clarion is 2-5. Both it and KSU played at St. Bonaventure earlier this season. Clarion lost 81-49 and Kent State won 64-53. When Clarion and KSU met in 2018, the Flashes won 92-38, the fourth-largest margin of victory in school history.
The game pits KSU sophomore point guard Casey Santoro against her sister, Cory, who is a freshman guard for Clarion. Cory has started all seven of Clarion’s games and averages 10 points. Casey and Cory played together most of their lives, including three years at Bellevue High School. There they won three straight league champions together (and two more in the years they weren’t both on the team).
Clarion’s top scorer is 5-9 freshman guard Sierra Bermudez, who averages 18.6 points a game.
Kent State’s Santoro, Lindsey Thall and Katie Shumate have traded off leading the team in scoring through eight games. Shumate currently averages 14.8 points a game, Thall 14.6 and Santoro 14.0. All are shooting better than 44% from 3-point distance. The Flashes as a team are shooting 41.5% on 3s, which ranks second in the country.
Kent State’s best starts
Good starts don’t necessarily predict great seasons.
- The 2008-09 team (11-1 start) finished 19-10 and tied for second in the MAC East at 8-8. They were 8-9 after the outstanding beginning.
- The 1978-79 team (8-1), playing before the MAC sponsored women’s basketball, lost three games in a row after its fast start. Those Flashes went on finish 23-8 and at the end of the season finished third in an women’s basketball tournament among Ohio universities and colleges.
- The 1993-94 team (8-1) finished 20-9 overall and fourth in the MAC at 10-8.
The best teams in KSU history?
- The 1995-96 team went 24-7 after a 3-3 start, losing to Texas Tech, Nebraska and LSU. It made the second round of the NCAA tournament before losing to Penn State. Those Flashes won the MAC regular-season conference championship at 16-2 but lost to Toledo in the MAC tournament finals. The team got an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, where it beat Texas A&M in the first round. Amy Sherry, Carrie Templin and Billie Jean Smith-Goldman led that team.
- The 1997-98 team started 3-4 but finished 23-7, swept the MAC regular season at 18-0 and finished 23-7. It won the MAC tournament, then lost 79-76 at Iowa State in the first round of the NCAA. Julie Studer, Dawn Zerman and Templin were that team’s top players.
- After a 3-4 start, the 1999-2000 team finished 25-6, the best record in school history. Zerman and Studer led KSU to a MAC regular season championship at 15-1 and the league tournament title. The Flashes lost to Arizona in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
I’ve written before that the 2010-11 team started 11-1. I was wrong. That record belonged the 2008-09 team. The 2010-11 team started 6-0, the longest undefeated beginning in school history. It then lost two in a row, finished 20-10 and second in the MAC East at 11-5.
Question without an answer: Which is better — a 6-0 start or an 11-1 start?