Katie Shumate (14) charges down the court, following teammate Bridget Dunn. Shumate scored a team-high 17 points. Dunn ranked second with 13 and made 3-of-3 three-point attempts. (Photo by David Dermer for Kent State Athletics.)

After splitting its first eight preseason games against Division I competition, Kent State feasted on lower-division opponents in its last two.

The Flashes set a school record for scoring margin Saturday against Division III La Roche with a 109-31 victory Saturday. Last week they beat Division II Lake Erie 84-20, allowing the fewest points in KSU history.

Kent State is 6-4 and opens Mid-American Conference play Wednesday at Buffalo. LaRoche is 8-3 and leads the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference with a 4-0 record. Lake Erie is 1-7.

Kent State scored the first 19 points of the game and held La Roche, a 1,800-student college outside Pittsburgh, to fewer than 10 points in all four quarters. The 78-point margin beat KSU’s previous high of 72 against Hiram in 2022.

Coach Todd Starkey said scheduling teams like La Roche is part of a plan.

“You have to have some level of balance in a schedule,” the coach said. And scheduling the game right before conference season, “we get the opportunity to get on the court and to play against somebody else. In these situations, it gives you the opportunity to play your whole bench.”

All 14 players on the roster played at least four minutes and scored at least three points. No one played more than 25 minutes; only two played more than 20.

The games against Lake Erie and La Roche, both at home, also somewhat balance the rest of KSU’s preseason schedule, which was rated 148th of 360 teams in the country by WarrenNolan.com, an analytics website. Kent also played only one of its first eight games at home.

Fifth-year guard Katie Shumate led the Flashes wtih 17 points. Junior forward Bridget Dunn had 13, freshman Janae Tyler 12, and graduate transfer Mikala Morris 10.

Guard Dionna Gray led KSU nine rebounds.

Point guard Corynne Hauser had a career-high nine assists as the Flashes put up 36 assists on 44 baskets. That was the team’s most assists in a game since 1990. Gray and Abby Ogle had five each and Jenna Batsch and Mya Babbitt four each. (There are games when no KSU player had more than three assists.)

Starkey also said the team was trying to work on its transition game. The result: a 30-0 advantage on fast-break points.

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Jenna Batsch scored a career-high 19 points and blocked two shots in Kent State’s 89-82 loss to Duquesne Sunday.

Kent State coach Todd Starkey has played Duquesne to an absolute draw in six meetings with the Dukes.

Each team has now won three games. Neither team has won by more than seven points.

Sunday, the two teams tied after regulation and tied again after one overtime before Duquesne pulled out an 89-82 victory in double overtime.

The game was close throughout with quarter-long swings in the second (20-13 Kent) and third (25-18 Duquesne) periods.

In the fourth period, KSU scored the first nine points, then watched Duquesne tie the game at 63 with 1:06 to go. Mikala Morris put Kent back ahead with a three-point play 40 seconds later, then Duquesne’s Tess Myers tied it again with a long-range 3-point basket with 11 seconds to go.

“We put ourselves in a position to win the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter,” Starkey told KSU broadcaster Zane Richardson in his postgame interveiw. “Then we gave them too many chances at the end.”

When Richardson suggested Kent’s entire starting lineup had key moments over the end of regulation and the two overtimes, Starkey replied:

“We got to have more than moments. We have to have full games from everybody. We have different players step up at different times. But at the end of the day, you have to be good all the time in these games, especially on the road.”

The game was the Flashes’ seventh on the road in its first eight games. 

Sophomore point guard Corynne Hauser led Kent State with her first double-double of her career — 19 points and 11 reboounds. Junior forward Jenna Batsch had a career-high 19 points, andd Morris scored 11. Four other Flashes had at least seven points.

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Bridget Dunn (15) had a career-high 12 rebounds and Jenna Batsch 13 points in Kent State’s 76-49 loss to Florida State Sunday. (Photo from KSU X feed.)

Kent State women’s basketball team led 14-11 after the first quarter but missed a ton of layups the rest of the game and fell to No. 15 Florida State 76-49 Sunday.

The Flashes are 4-3 on the season, with two of the losses coming to top-15 teams. Florida State is 6-2.

“It was definitely a winnable game for us,” coach Todd Starkey said. “But we have to make shots. I can’t remember a game I’ve coached where we missed so many layups. Some were contested, but we had open looks and uncontested layups we missed. You have to make those to be in the game.

“We were just off as far as finishing shots. Then I thought that we let missed shots affect us at the defensive end of the floor throughout the third and fourth quarter.”

Kent State made 10-of-30 layups and shot 24.7% overall for the game. Florida State made 16 of its 37 layups and shot 37% overall. FSU scored 17 points on fast breaks and 36 in the paint, more indication of chances near the basket.

Bridget Dunn, KSU’s 6-3 junior forward, had a career-high 12 rebounds. Her previous high had been 10, recorded early this season against Xavier. Her total of 12 is also the best among any KSU player this season.

“She’s really changed her game — changed her mindset on rebounding,” Starkey said. “I told her in the locker room that she was definitely one of the bright spots of our game— 12 rebounds against a tough, athletic Florida State team.”

The Flashes outrebounded FSU as a team 53-51. It was the first time since March 2022 that Kent State had 50 rebounds against a Division I school.

Dunn also had nine points on three 3-point baskets. Her 14 three-pointers this season are double any other player on the team.

Jenna Batsch led Kent State with 13 points while Corynne Hauser had 10. Katie Shumate had nine rebounds.

Kent State took a 14-11 lead out of the first quarter, but Florida State ended the second quarter on a 10-0 and led throughout the second half.

The game was the third of three for the Flashes against Power 5 opponents. Kent played defending national champion LSU evenly for just over a half before losing 109-79, beat Missouri 67-64 and lost to Florida State.

What do the Flashes take from those games?

“We can play with anybody when we’re playing well,” Starkey said. “We have to be more consistent. If we are, there isn’t a team on the rest of our schedule that we can’t beat.”

Florida State put five players in double figures, led by NaNiya Latson, last year’s national freshman of the year. She scored 15.

Kent State has a week off, then plays at Duquesne next Sunday.

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