The score says it all:
Kent State 105, Hiram 33.
It was the largest margin of victory in Kent State basketball history — men’s or women’s.
It was the most points the KSU women have scored since 2000, when they beat Bowling Green 106-94.
It was overwhelming from start to finish.
Kent State led 14-0, then 22-1, then 31-4 at the end of the first quarter. The score was 55-13 at halftime, then 79-22 after three quarters.
A free throw by graduate student Annie Pavlansky made the game 100-31 with 1:36 to go, and Pavlansky ended things with a 3-point basket with 24 seconds left.
Yes, it was Hiram, a Division III school that doesn’t give athletic scholarships. The game was technically an “exhibition” for the Terriers because Division III schoocan only to play 25 regular-season games. (In its seven regular-season games so far, Hiram is 4-3.)
Counting the Hiram game, Kent State is 6-3.
Why does KSU even play Hiram? “Schedule balance,” coach Todd Starkey said in a pre-season interview. The game was a break for the Flashes, who had played the 12th most difficult schedule in the country for its first eight games, according to Warren Nolan.com, a statistics site I follow.
Thirteen Kent State players got in the game (grad student Lindsey Thall sat out with an ankle injury), and all scored. Twelve played more than 12 minutes. Only one starter played more than 17 minut; thatat was sophomore forward Bridget Dunn. With Thall out, Dunn started her first game of the season.
“It was nice to get everybody some playing time,” Starkey said. “Everybody came in and contributed with great energy.
“Every single one of these players works really hard in the classroom and in practice every day.”
In the interview room after the game were a couple of players who haven’t been in the headlines this season.
“It was really fun,” said freshman point guard Dionna Gray, who scored 10 points and had four assists and two steals. “Everybody got to touch the ball, and everybody got to score.”
Gray averaged 22 points a game and was Gatorade player of the year in West Virginia last season. At Kent State, she’s competing for playing time at point guard with two other all-staters — junior Casey Santoro and fellow freshman Corynne Hauser. Before Gray played 19 minutes on Sunday, she had averaged seven minutes a game.
“It’s been a while, so it felt good to be able to feel more like a point guard today,” she said.
Grad student Abby Ogle, who has played 10 minutes a game as part of KSU’s main rotation, scored a career-high 13 points in 13 minutes. She had five steals, the most by any Kent State player this season, and three assists.
Ogle was a third-team junior college all-American but played sparingly at West Virginia, her first four-year school. After she transferred to Kent State, Ogle was injured early last season and played in only six games.
“It’s just really nice to get back to how I used to play before everything happened,” she said. Ogle is tied with Katie Shumate for the team lead in steals with 10, and she has played 40% of Shumate’s minutes. Her philosophy on steals:
“Gamble, but gamble well,” she said.
Other players who got far more minutes than usual:
Freshman wing Tatiana Thomaho led the team in rebounds with eight. She scored five points, had three assists, two steals and a blocked shot in 13 minutes.
“She’s a great athlete, a phenomenal finisher and rebounder,” Starkey said. “Like all the freshmen, she’s still on a learning curve. There’s a process you have to go through to understand how intense college basketball is, and they’re still learning that.”
Redshirt freshman Elena Maier, who had missed more than two years of basketball after a knee injury in high school, scored her first collegiate points and played 15 minutes.
“Go g through an ACL your senior year in high school is tough,” Starkey said. “Then she came here and had to have another surgery to repair some of that stuff. That was a long two years for her.”
Her points came on a 3-point shot for the corner, a spot where she shoots “as well as anybody on our team,” Starkey said.
The team chose Maier to ring the Victory Bell after the game.
Sophomore guard Lexi Linton stole the ball and went the length of the court for layups three times. The game was her second of the season, the steals were the first of her career, and her six points doubled her previous college output. “She can be a disrupter out there,” Starkey said.
The regulars
- Senior Katie Shumate, the Flashes’ leading scorer, led the team with 18 points in just 13 minutes. She was 7-of-9 shooting.
- Sophomore Bridget Dunn scored seven points, had five rebounds, two assists and two steals and blocked a shot.
- Freshman Corynne Hauser had four assists. She leads the team with 2.9 assists per game.
- Grad student Hannah Young, the team’s leading rebounder, had six in 12 minutes, blocked two shots and had three steals.
- Grad student Annie Pavlansky had 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting and five rebounds, both the best of her five-year career.
- Sophomore Jenna Batsch had nine points, her most of the season, on 4-of-8 shooting.
Running the numbers
Across the board, they were KSU’s best of the season.
- The Flashes had 25 steals, their most in at least 12 years
- They had 22 assists, one below their highest number since 2012-13.
- KSU’s 51.8% shooting was its best of the season.
- Hiram’s 18.4% shooting was the worst of any Kent opponent.
- Kent State outscored Hiram 52-4 off turnovers, 54-6 in the paint, 22-5 on second-chance points and 33-0 on fast breaks. Its bench outscored Hiram’s reserves 66-9/
Next: Exams, then Otterbein
The Flashes are off until Dec. 20 for final exams. Then they will play an 11 a.m. “Education Day” game against Otterbein in the M.A.C. Center in front of several thousand elementary school children. Like Hiram, Otterbein is a Division III school and is 4-3 on the season.
Around the MAC
Some big wins for Mid-American Conference Schools in the last week:
- Ball State (8-2) upset Pittsburgh (6-4) of the ACC 68-66 in overtime Sunday.
- Toledo (7-2) beat No. 14 Michigan (9-1) on Thursday in Ann Arbor 71-68.
Kent State is the only other MAC school to beat a Power Five team —58-55 at Oklahoma State (now 8-2) on Nov. 20.
MAC standings (just non-conference games so far)