Corynne Hauser is coming into her own as a scorer for the Kent State women’s basketball team.
She led four Flashes in double figures with 17 points Wednesday as KSU beat Eastern Michigan 79-66. Hauser, a freshman guard from Rochester, Pennsylvania, had scored 18 points against Toledo Saturday and 23 against Miami last Wednesday. She’s moved into third place on the team with a scoring average of 9.9 points per game. Lindsey Thall leads the Flashes at 10.9.
The victory gives Kent State a 3-2 record in the Mid-American Conference and an 11-5 record overall. The Flashes are tied with Toledo, Buffalo and Western Michigan for fourth place in the conference. Bowling Green, Akron and Ball State are tied for first at 4-1.
Hauser scored seven of Kent State’s first nine points as the Flashes built a 24-13 first-quarter lead.
“I was just coming out trying to be aggressive,” Hauser said. “We wanted to play quick — the way we have been in the past few games. So I was pretty much just taking what the defense gave me. They were sagging off a little bit, and I was able to get open.”
“Corynne got us off into a great rhythm offensively,” Starkey said. “They had to make some adjustments and really pay more attention to her, which really led to our balance in scoring.”
Hauser had six assists and leads the team with 3.1 per game.
“When when you have a play maker like Corynne, it opens other people up,” Starkey said. ” One of the things that makes her so dangerous is you can’t help too much off her because she’s able to find other players. Corynne could have probably gone for 25 points tonight. But then we don’t have the balanced scoring that we had.”
Senior Clare Kelly had 14 points off the bench for the Flashes. Senior Katie Shumate had 11 and graduate student Hannah Young had 10. Junior Casey Santoro and sophomore Bridget Dunn each had nine, and grad student Lindsey Thall scored seven.
Kent State’s 79 points were the most the Flashes have scored against a Division I team this season. Its 51.9% shooting percentage and its 45.8% 3-point shooting were also their best against a D1 opponent. Kent State made 71% of its shots in the first quarter. For the first three quarters, KSU made 59% of its 3-pointers.
Eastern Michigan came into the game leading the MAC in rebounding, but the Flashes outrebounded the Eagles 29-28 and held them to three second-chance points. Santoro, the smallest player on the floor at 5-4, led KSU in rebounding with five. Hauser, Shumate, Young and Dunn all had four. Only Dunn is a post player.
“We have a term with our guards on rebounding: ‘They have to join the party.’ They can’t leave it up to the post players to do all the work. We talked about how we had to gang rebound — get all five involved. To outrebound that team was a tall task, and we were able to do that.”
NEXT FOR KENT STATE: At Bowling Green (4-1 MAC, 15-2 overall) at 1 p.m. Saturday on ESPN3.
In order to get to bed at a decent hour, I’m going to stop here and write a follow-up story tomorrow.