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Kent State women's basketball

4 in a row! Flashes are moving up MAC standings after 78-67 win at Central Michigan

By on Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Senior Mariah Modkins has scored 28 points in KSU’s winning streak. That’s as many as she scored in the Flashes’ first 17 games. She had 15 points, including three 3-pointers, against Central Michigan. (File photo by Ryan Moore/KSU Athletic Communications.)

We could be in for quite a stretch run in the Mid-American Conference.

Kent State beat Central Michigan 78-67 Wednesday for its fourth-straight victory. After a start of the MAC season that saw KSU go 2-6, the Flashes are 6-6 and in a three-way tie for sixth in the conference.

Only two games separate third-place Ball State (7-4) and ninth-place Northern Illinois (6-7). Akron is in fourth at 7-5 and Bowling Green fifth at 6-5. Kent State and Western Michigan are 6-6, and Ohio is 5-5.

Kent State plays six of its eight final regular-season games against those six teams. The top eight teams make the MAC Tournament in March.

“I’m not really concerned about the standings yet,” coach Todd Starkey said. “There’s a lot of basketball to play. All of our losses are by nine points or less, and they came when we weren’t at our best health-wise.

“So we’ll see how things develop. We just have to stay focused on the next game. That’s what’s got us to this point.”

4 quarters, 4 stars

The Flashes led for 38 minutes of the game, but each quarter had its own star.

Quarter 1: Nila Blackford and KSU’s defense

Blackford had four points, four rebounds and a steal as the Flashes jumped to a 15-7 lead. She and the Flashes held Central Michigan to 3-of-15 shooting and scored nine points off of five CMU turnovers.

The 6-2 forward from Louisville, Kentucky has regained her all-conference form of last season over KSU’s last seven games. She scored steadily against CMU and finished with 15 points and 9 rebounds, which is slightly below her averages for the MAC season. She also had an assist, two steals and a blocked shot, and drew five fouls on Miami players.

Quarter 2: Bridget Dunn scores 11

Dunn, a 6-3 freshman from Carmel, Indiana, scored 11 of her 16 points in the second quarter, making 4-of-5 shots and both her 3-point attempts. She had three steals in the quarter. She finished with 16 point, making 3-of-5 three-pointers and 3-of-4 foul shots. Dunn averages 12.5 points in MAC play and leads the team in 3-point percentage and 3-point baskets made.

“She’s done a really good job,” Starkey said. “With freshmen, you not sure how well they’ll adapt to the college game. She’s playing within what we thought she was capable of doing.”

Quarter 3: Casey Santoro scored 9 in 11-0 run

Central Michigan had closed KSU’s nine-point halftime lead to 46-43 when Santoro, a sophomore guard from Bellevue, hit two foul shots. Then Katie Shumate scored on a pass from Lindsey Thall. In the last 1:39 of the quarter, Santoro hit a 3-point shot, then, on the next two possessions, blew by the Central defense for two layups. Kent State led 57-43.

“She’s our quickest player,” Starkey said. “She was being guarded by multiple players that were in foul trouble. So we really wanted to attack that and get her going downhill.” 

Santoro finished with 11 points and four assists.

Quarter 4: Mariah Modkins caps season-high 15 points

When Kent State’s winning streak starter, Modkins, a senior guard from Solon, had scored 28 points in KSU’s first 17 games. In the winning streak, she has scored another 28. She scored 15 against CMU, her best this season by six points and one off of her career-high. In Wednesday’s fourth quarter, she hit two three-point baskets.

“She’s kind of got a renewed focus, just like everybody else has,” Starkey said. “The big thing for her was finally seeing the ball go through the basket. In the Eastern Michigan game, she went 3-for-4 from 3, and that kind of broke some things loose for her. She’s playing with a lot of confidence.”

Four wins in eight days

The Flashes’ win streak started last Wednesday with a 68-57 victory over Central. Then they beat Eastern Michigan 70-61 and Miami 83-61. Starkey said the packed schedule, caused by schedule changes after COVID-19 postponements, was a challenge.

“You could really tell that mentally and physically, they were really tired,” Starkey said. “They were dragging to do everything tonight. But they found a way to win, and that’s what you have to do on the road.”

Beating Central Michigan — finally

The win was Kent State’s first in Mount Pleasant since 2007. The Flashes’ victory last week was Starkey’s first over CMU in his six years at KSU and Kent’s first win over the Chippewas since 2012. The last time Kent State won two games in a season against Central Michigan was 2000. When the MAC scheduled by division, the teams rarely played twice in a season.

Central is going through its worst season since 2006-07. The Chippewas, who have won either the MAC Tournament or regular-season championship for six-straight years, are 2-11 in the MAC and 4-18 overall. CMU lost three key seniors, including league MVP Micaela Kelly, to graduation and have been hit by injuries and illness throughout the season. The Chipps had only seven players in uniform on Wednesday.

Box score

Running the numbers

  • Kent State made 29-of-55 shots for 51.8%, its second highest percetnage of the season by just .1 percentage point. The Flashes were 8-of-19 (41%) from 3-point distance. Central shot 39.8% from the field and 45.5% on 3-pointers.
  • The Flashes scored 25 points off turnovers, equaling its total of last week’s game against CMU. That’s the most points KSU has scored off turnovers against a Division I team this season. Central committed 17 turnovers, KSU 14.
  • Kent State outscored CMU 38-24 in the paint. KSU’s bench players outscored Central’s 28-11.
  • Clare Kelly started her first game of the season and scored nine points. She replaced Hannah Young in the lineup. Young, who has been fighting ankle problems, fell to the court as her team was ringing the victory bell Monday. She was on the bench against CMU but didn’t play.

Next: Ball State on Saturday

The Flashes play third-place Ball State (7-4 MAC, 14-7) at 1 p.m. Sunday on the M.A.C. Center. The Cardinals have won five games in a row and were idle Wednesday because of injury and illness at Ohio, their scheduled opponent.

The Bobcats didn’t have seven players available for the game, which is the minimum allowed by the MAC. Ohio ended its 80-70 loss at Northern Illinois Sunday with only four players on the court after leading scorer Cece Hooks went down with an injury with 3:31 to go.

Kent State beat BSU 54-51 on Jan. 9, but Ball State has won five games in a row.

Other MAC scores

  • First-place Toledo (11-1 MAC, 17-4 overall) 86, Miami (3-8, 7-13) 63 at Miami.
  • Second-place Buffalo (10-3, 16-7) 93, Eastern Michigan (2-10, 5-14) 68 at Buffalo.
  • Bowling Green (6-5, 11-9) 81, Northern Illinois (6-7, 9-12) 52 at BG.
  • Akron (7-5, 10-8) 86, Western Michigan (6-6, 12-9) 70 at Western.

MAC standings

MAC statistics

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Kent State women's basketball

Struggling Flashes lose third in a row, this time 62-61 to Akron

By on Wednesday, January 5, 2022
KSU freshman Bridget Dunn works to guard Akron’s leading scorer, Jordyn Dawson. Dawson had 18 points, 16 rebounds, four assists and two steals. Dunn had 11 points and five rebounds. (Photo by David Dermer for KSU athletics.)

Kent State coach Todd Starkey admitted he is struggling to figure out his team’s 0-3 start in the Mid-American Conference.

The Flashes fell to Akron 62-61 at the M.A.C. Center Wednesday and are in last place in the conference. KSU had started the season 8-1 and ranked as high as 12th in the College Insider Mid-Major Poll.

Akron is 4-4 and 1-1 in the conference.

Key things from Wednesday’s game:

  1. For the third straight game, the Flashes shot less than 35%. Before Christmas, the team was making more than 43% of its shots.
  2. The team looked out of sync most of the night. Kent State had a season-low seven assists, which is a sign the offense isn’t running well.
  3. The Flashes went on a 10-2 run in the last three-and-a-half minutes of the game but missed a shot as time expired.
  4. Senior forward Lindsey Thall, a key player since her first game as a freshman, missed her second-straight game with COVID-19.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Starkey said to reporters after the game. “We’ve got all-conference players that are struggling to find any kind of rhythm. We’re not knocking down the same shots that we were pre-Christmas. We’re not executing plays we’ve been running with upperclassmen for three years. We get in games, and we look kind of lost.

“We have the same players in the same uniforms, and it’s just completely different. I’ve never experienced that much of a 180 during a season. The coaches look at each other and kind of shake our heads, like, ‘How is this happening?’ But our job is to figure it out.”

Ebbs and flow

For the second-straight game, Kent State fell badly behind early but came back to take a halftime lead. The Flashes trailed 15-6 before they went on a 13-2 run and led 30-27 at the break. The game was tied at 42 going into the fourth quarter. Akron pulled away to lead by as many as nine points, but KSU dominated the last three minutes.

The Flashes pulled within 62-61 with 30 seconds left on two Casey Santoro foul shots, then forced a turnover with 16 seconds to go. But a Santoro drive ended in a crowd under the basket. The ball finally got to Bridget Dunn for an 8-foot jumper shot, but it missed.

“We didn’t execute that well, but we had trouble executing about everything we were trying to do,” Starkey said. “We played hard, but we did not play well virtually the entire game. I don’t think we deserve to win.”

Thall is still out

Lindsey, who had started 83 straight games before missing the Western Michigan game Saturday, was still out with COVID.

“She’s our best player,” Starkey said. “She sets the table for everybody. She helps us execute the offense and is obviously a big offensive threat. But we’ve also played winning basketball when she’s been in foul trouble this year. So we have to be able to work through that. But we are better than this. There’s no question about it.”

Running the numbers

  • Casey Santoro led the Flashes with a career-high 21 points and had three 3-point baskets, four assists and two steals. Katie Shumate had 13 points and Dunn 11, also including three 3-pointers.
  • Nila Blackford had 17 rebounds after grabbing 15 at Western Michigan on Saturday. But she was 3-of-11 shooting and missed all four of her foul shots.
  • Overall, the Flashes shot somewhat better than they had in their previous MAC games. KSU made 34.4% of its shots and 42.1% of 3-pointers. In their first two games, they had averaged 29% shooting and 30% from distance. In non-conference play, KSU had averaged 43.5% from the field and 42% on 3s.
  • The Flashes outrebounded Akron 45-36, the 12th straight game they’ve outrebounded their opponents. KSU had 17 offensive rebounds but only 12 second-chance points. They were outscored in the paint 40-28 and made just 14-of-34 shots in the paint.
  • Akron shot 40.6% and outscored Kent State 17-8 off turnovers and 12-4 on fast breaks.

Next: first-place Buffalo on Saturday

The Bulls tied for first in the league with Toledo at 3-0 and are 9-4 overall. They’ve won all five of their home games and beat Bowling Green (1-1 MAC, 6-5 overall) 82-66 Wednesday. Saturday’s game is at 1 p.m. in Buffalo.

Other MAC scores

  • Western Michigan (2-0 MAC, 8-3) 58, Central Michigan (1-2, 3-9) 44 at Central.
  • Toledo (3-0, 9-3) 64, Eastern Michigan (0-1, 0-5) at Toledol
  • Ball State (1-1, 8-4) 83, Northern Illinois (0-2, 3-7) 82 in overtime at Northern.

Box score

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Kent State women's basketball

8-1 but coming off a COVID break, Flashes open MAC season against Toledo on Wednesday

By on Wednesday, December 29, 2021
A powder-blue game: The Flashes will wear new uniforms Wednesday. These players are (from left): sophomore Lexi Jackson, senior Annie Pavlansky, sophomore Casey Santoro and freshman Bridget Dunn. (Photo from team Twitter feed.)

Two questions loom over as the Kent State women’s Mid-American Conference Wednesday opener against Toledo.

  • Will the Flashes’ 8-1 non-league record translate into a successful conference season?
  • What’s is COVID-19 going to do to the rest of the women’s basketball season? Kent State’s Dec. 21 game against Florida State was canceled because of COVID problems for the Flashes.

We start to find out this week. After playing 6-3 Toledo at the M.A.C. Center Wednesday, the Flashes travel to 6-3 Western Michigan on Saturday.

The Toledo game is part of a doubleheader with the KSU men, who play Central Michigan at 4:30 p.m. The women will play a half-hour after that game finishes, probably about 7 p.m. A ticket to the men’s games gives you a free general admission ticket to the women (and most of the women’s seats are general admission).

The game will be streamed on Boxcast through the KSU website. It can be heard on the Kent State Radio Network and live statistics during and after that game can be found on the team website.

Do the Flashes have a MAC championship in them?

Kent has the best record in the conference. Every other team in the MAC has lost at least two more games.

The Flashes have played no cupcake schedule. They beat UCLA (then ranked No. 19 in the country, now 5-3) and Penn State (7-5) by solid margins in the Gulf Coast Showcase over Thanksgiving weekend. They opened the season on the road with an 80-73 win over Northern Kentucky (now 7-3).

Yes, they played two non-Division I teams and routed them by an average of 53 points. They didn’t play their best in their last two Division I games against St. Bonaventure and Duquesne.

But their schedule is rated between second and fourth hardest in the MAC by various services that do that kind of thing.

Kent State has piled up some fancy statistics in its best start to a season in 13 years. The Flashes:

  • Rank third in the country in 3-point shooting percentage (42.0%) and seventh in 3-pointers per game (10.2). The Flashes are 13th nationally in fewest turnovers per game (12.0), 17th in rebounding margin (+10.9) and 30th in scoring average (77.3 points per game.)
  • Were ranked 13th in this week’s College Insider Mid-Major Poll, highest of any MAC team. Buffalo is 18th. Kent State coach Todd Starkey and Ohio coach Bob Bolden are on the 31-member panel that votes in the poll.
  • Sophomore guard Casey Santoro is third in the country in 3-point percentage (54.55%) and 10th in the country with a 3.08 assist-to turnover ratio. Lindsey Thall is 43rd in 3-point percentage at 43.4%). KSU’s Katie Shumate actually averages an even higher percentage of 55.2%, but she hasn’t taken enough shots to qualify for the NCAA rankings.

NCAA statistics.

In the MAC, Kent State is:

  • Second in scoring offense (77.3), first in scoring margin (+17.9) and second in scoring defense (59.4).
  • First in 3-point percentage (42.0, more than 5 points ahead of any other team) and first in 3-pointers per game,
  • Third in field-goal defense (opponents are shooting 28.8%).
  • First in rebounding margin (+10.9, more than five rebounds a game ahead of any other team).
  • First in fewest turnovers per gtame (12.0), second in assist/turnover ratio (1.19).
  • Kent State players rank 1-2-3 in 3-point percentage: Shumate (55.2%), Santoro (54.5%) and Hannah Young (52.4%). Thall is ninth (43.4) and Bridget Dunn 12th (39.4%).
  • Nila Blackford is seventh in rebounding (7.8 a game), Thall is ninth (7.1) and Hannah Young 10th (7.0).
  • Shumate is fifth in field-goal percentage (52.2%) and Santoro fifth in free-throw percentage (85.7%).
  • Santoro leads the conference in assist/turnover ratio (3.1) and is ninth in assists per game (4.1).

MAC statistics.

“We’ve had a solid start,” coach Todd Starkey said. “Now we’re going to have to prove it game-in and game-out. Everybody is 0-0 now. Everybody in the league is solid.”

The Flashes need to focus on consistency, he said.

“There have been games we’ve played very well,” Starkey said. “There have been games we’ve played solid for 30 minutes— and the other 10 minutes hasn’t been the best.”

About Toledo

The Rockets have won six games but haven’t beaten any team with a record better than 4-7. They have played good teams well in their three losses, losing 69-60 to the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Dayton (8-3) and 68-63 in overtime to Seton Hall of the Big East. Last week Toledo lost 60-46 to Missouri, the top-ranked mid-major team.

Toledo has the MAC’s best scoring defense (58.4 points per game, a point better than KSU) and best field-goal defense (35.8%).

Guard Quinesha Locket averages 18.6 points per game, sixth in the MAC. Point guard Sophia Wiard leads Toledo in rebounding (6.7 per game) and assists (4.1). She also averages 10.8 points a game.

Game preview from Toledo website.

The COVID conundrum

All 12 MAC teams were supposed to open the conference season Wednesday. Only four will. As of Tuesday night, four of six games had been canceled because of COVID outbreaks. Besides the Toledo-KSU game, the only other game is Central Michigan at Buffalo.

Kent State missed 10 days of practice (and the FSU game) because of a COVID outbreak that started just after the team’s 89-43 win over Clarion on Dec. 11.

Akron had three games non-conference games canceled, Eastern Michigan two and Northern Illinois one.

The Flashes returned to practice on Dec. 26. Starkey wouldn’t say much beyond “we’ll have enough healthy players” to play Toledo.

Starkey said this fall that all team members and coaches were vaccinated, but that was before booster shots and the Omricon variant.

As Kent State learned last year, early postponements in league play can be crippling. The Flashes started 5-0, then lost 25 days to COVID problems on the team. They ended up playing more games than any other MAC team in February to make up some of the missed contests and were pretty worn down by the end of the season.

But as has been the case since the pandemic started, there are more COVID questions than answers. Here are three on my mind:

How bad will this get? 65 Division I games scheduled for this week already had been canceled or postponed by Tuesday afternoon. The CDC reported more COVID infections yesterday than at any time in the pandemic, and a lot of experts are predicting a very bad January because of the Omricon variant.

Will colleges adapt the new CDC recommendation that cuts quarantine time to five days (from 10) for non-symptomatic infections and for people who had had close contact with someone who was infected? Those five days could be the difference between one game being canceled to losing three games. State and local health authorities, plus individual schools and conferences, would have to sign off on that. The recommendations are so new that we won’t know the answer to this question for days.

Will Kent State’s early problems help it in the long run? Previous infection can help build immunity and prevent COVID for a time. Perhaps this season KSU will watch other teams wear themselves out making up postponed games. But teams can be hit by COVID more than once. That happened to KSU last season, but that was pre-vaccination.

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Kent State women's basketball

Casey Santoro’s triple-double — first in KSU history — leads Flashes past Clarion 89-43

By on Saturday, December 11, 2021
Sisters Cory (left) and Casey Santoro, who played against each other in a game for the first time Saturday, gave a joint interview afterwards at the request of their hometown newspaper. (WbbFlashes photo.)

Playing against her sister and in front of her parents and a big group from her hometown, sophomore guard Casey Santoro put up the first triple-double in Kent State history as the Flashes overwhelmed Division II Clarion 89-43 Saturday.

Santoro had 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. No KSU player — man or woman — had ever done that before.

Santoro had eight rebounds when she went to the bench with five minutes to go in the game. “Put her back in!” her teammates and some assistants told head coach Todd Starkey.

“That’s when I knew I was close,” Santoro said.

She went back in with 3:32 left and passed to Bridget Dunn to set up a 3-point basket 11 seconds later. A minute later, as the crowd cheered for another assist, Santoro passed to Dunn for another 3 and a place in the record book. Santoro got a standing ovation when she came out of the game shortly afterward.

“It feels pretty awesome,” Santoro said. “But I couldn’t have done it without my teammates knocking down the shots.”

The big things to know from the game:

  • Santoro’s triple-double included assists on eight 3-point baskets.
  • Senior Hannah Young scored a career-high 16 points and had her first collegiate double-double. Bridget Dunn (15 points) and Annie Pavlansky (10) had career highs in scoring.
  • The win gives the Flashes an 8-1 start, tying for second-best in school history.

Here’s the pass that gave Santoro the triple-double:

Santoro made 4-of-6 three-point attempts and 6-of-10 shots overall. She had a career-high 10 assists, two steals and only one turnover in 31 minutes

The Santoro backstory

“It was awesome to see Casey play like that,” Starkey said. “I don’t think she went into the game trying to do that. But you don’t do it by accident. It’s the type of habits she has every day, her work ethic, her focus. She’s tough as nails as a player.

“There were a lot of coaches that didn’t even look at recruiting her. They said she was too small. (Santoro is 5-4.) I said, ‘She doesn’t have to be good for you. She just has to be good for me.'”

Starkey has no problem with small point guards.

“I’ve won six championships in my career,” the coach said. “Every championship I’ve won, I’ve had a small point guard. They play with the chip on their shoulder. People tell them they can’t do it, and they go out every day to try and prove that they can. That’s what Casey’s all about.”

Santoro scored 2,400 points in Bellevue High School and made the all-Ohio first team three times. Last season she averaged about 20 minutes and scored 6.7 points a game. Her shooting percentage was just 31.1%.

This year, she’s making 47.1% of her shots and 54.5% of her 3-point attempts, which is fourth in the Mid-Amerian Conference.

Last season she averaged a bit more than two assists and 1.5 turnovers per game. This season she’s averaging 4.1 assists and 1.3 turnovers. Her assist-to-turnover ratio — something coaches care a lot about in point guards — is second in the MAC at 3.1-to-1.

“She was such a prolific scorer in high school,” Starkey said. “There’s an adjustment to playing with really good players around you and the type of post players that we have.

“So it was a process that she had to go through last year. And in a COVID year, we didn’t have as much time to work with them individually, and there were gaps where we couldn’t have them in to watch film.

“She’s gotten better at learning her teammates. You have to know not only the other team’s personnel but your own personnel. You have to know where your teammates need the ball and where not to throw it. Just because they’re open doesn’t mean they’re the right person to throw it to.

“And Casey’s been a really good student of the game. She spends a lot of time watching film. She spends a lot of extra time in the gym — the old cliche, ‘first one in the gym, last one to leave’ — well, it’s true with her.”

Saturday’s game was the first this season that Santoro has started. She said that Mariah Modkins, the usual starter, had COVID-19. (Starkey has said that the entire team has been vaccinated. But protocol still requires a player to sit out if they show breakthrough symptoms or have a positive test.)

The Santoro sisters did a joint interview after the game, mostly for the Sandusky Register, their hometown newspaper.

Cory said it was “pretty cool” to see her sister get a triple-double. “I guess it’s OK if she gets it against your team,” she said, laughing.

Here’s link to the Sandusky Register story on the sisters by sports writer Billy Heyen.

Scoring from unexpected places

Neither of KSU’s top scorers going into the game managed 10 points. But Santoro and three other players did.

One was Young, who has started all nine games this season after starting only seven total her first three years. A 5-10 guard, Young had achieved her double-double against Clarion with six minutes to go in the third quarter. Her 16 points were one above her previous best and her 13 rebounds were two off her career-high. (“One of the coaches was telling me, ‘Try to beat it,'” Young said, smiling.) She played only 21 minutes in the game.

Dunn, a 6-3 freshman forward from Carmel, Indiana, had 15 points and seven rebounds, both the best of her young career. She made 3-of-7 three-point shots and ranks 15th in the MAC in 3-point shooting at 39.4%.

“She’s had a good start,” Starkey said. “She has a very high basketball IQ and is a really good passer for a post player. Obviously, she can shoot really well from outside.”

The coach said Dunn’s style of play is similar to senior Lindsey Thall, who has started every game in her four-year career.

“We thought Bridget would be great to play and learn beside Lindsey,” Starkey said, “and then be able to be a lot like her as she continues to develop.”

Pavansky, a senior, had 10 points, the most of her career.

“We’ve had a lot of talent here over the last four years, and she hasn’t been able to get the playing time that she would like to,” Starkey said. “So when you get opportunities for somebody like her to have a game like that — where it’s fun, your teammates are cheering — it’s an awesome thing.”

Every time Starkey talks about Pavlansky, he points out she has a perfect grade point average. She’s only one of three upperclassmen in the MAC to have a 4.0 average.

The coach also smiled as he remembered that Pavlansky’s uncle was Starkey’s junior varsity basketball coach in the early 1990s at Canfield High School outside Youngstown.

Dunn and Pavlansky combined for five 3-pointers. Santoro assisted on all of them.

A fast start and a tough next opponent

The victory gives Kent State an 8-1 start to the season, tying for its second-best in the 45 years of KSU women’s basketball. The best start was 11-1 in 2008-09, when the team finished 20-9. Teams in 1978-79 and 1993-94 also started 8-1. (wbbFlashes’ preview on the Clarion game has some interesting detail on those teams and three of the best teams in school history, which got off to mediocre starts.)

Clarion is 2-5 on the season.

Kent State has 10 days off for final exams.

Then they’ll host Florida State of the Atlantic Coast Conference, a team that has made the NCAA Tournament the last nine years. The Seminoles were ranked in the top 25 for several weeks earlier in the season. They are 6-2 going into Sunday’s game with Florida (8-3).

The game will be at the M.A.C. Center at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 21 (the same afternoon the KSU football team plays in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl). The FSU game is the first game of a doubleheader with the Kent State men’s team, which plays Cleveland State a half-hour after the women finish.

Box score

Notes

  • Starkey said junior guard Abby Ogle was out indefinitely with an injury. She was on the bench with her leg heavily bandaged. Ogle is a transfer from West Virginia who was a third-team all-American in junior college. She had played in six games and was tied for the team lead in steals despite playing just 11 minutes a game.
  • With Modkins out, junior Clare Kelly backed up Santoro at point guard. She didn’t score but had four assists, four rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot. Kelly started 13 games last season at shooting guard and averaged 8.8 points, scoring 27 against Toledo.
  • Every KSU player in uniform got into the game, with freshman guard Jenna Batsch logging 21 minutes. Bexley Wallace, a 6-3 junior forward and transfer from Penn State, scored her first two baskets for Kent. Sophomore Lexi Jackson, the team’s tallest player at 6-4, saw her first action in almost a month after being sidelined with illness. She scored four points and had a rebound.

Numbers

The statistics were as lopsided as you’d expect a 46-point win to be.

  • KSU outrebounded Clarion 55-30, its biggest margin in three seasons.
  • Clarion made only 24.1% of its shots and 15.4% of its 3-pointers. The Flashes shot 44.1% from the field and 45.2% on 3-pointers.
  • Kent State outscored Clarion in the paint 36-14, on second-chance points 24-7 and on fast breaks 19-7. The Flashes equaled ther season high of 23 assists and blocked five shots, the most since their opener at Northern Kentucky.

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Kent State women's basketball

Kent State wins 5th straight and goes to 4-0 in MAC with 70-61 win over Ball State

By on Saturday, January 9, 2021
Associate head coach Fran Recchia with team in huddle. Recchia led the team because head coach Todd Starkey is recovering from COVID-19. (Photo by Hayley Steffy from KSU Athletic Communications.)

Nila Blackford kept piling up the double-doubles in MAC play.

Hannah Young and Casey Santoro stepped up in reserve roles and played their best basketball of the season.

Associate head coach Fran Recchia won her first game as an acting head coach.

And Kent State is 4-0 in the Mid-American Conference and alone is second place after a 70-61 win over Ball State Saturday. The Flashes have won five in a row and are 5-2 on the season.

Blackford: Points and rebounds keep coming

Blackford had 20 points and 11 rebounds, her fourth time in fourth league games with double figures in both. She was a season-best 8-of-11 shooting, made a 3-point basket and had three steals. Blackford is averaging 13 rebounds a game in MAC play, best in the league in conference games only.

“When she puts complete games together — as she’s been doing — she gets really hard to guard,” said Recchia, who ran the team from the bench. Coach Todd Starkey was home after testing positive for COVID-19.

“She competes on every possession,” Recchia said, “and is an aggressive, instinctual player. She wants to win and really listens to coaching.”

Blackford talked about playing for her team.

“They need me to crash the boards really hard,” she said. “I feel like I just have a knack for the ball. I try to stay aggressive on offense, try to get mismatches and be strong to the basket — just strictly for my team.”

Santoro and Young: Big games from the bench

Freshman Santoro ran the KSU offense after starting point guard Mariah Modkins went out with an injury three-and-a-half minutes into the second quarter. The Flashes trailed 22-21.

Twenty-four seconds later Santoro fed Blackford for a layup to give Kent the lead, and a minute later Santoro hit a 3-point shot. Kent State never trailed again.

Santoro scored 12 points with two 3-point baskets and three assists. She played 33 minutes, the most of her short career.

“You have to step up when the opportunity presents itself,” Recchia said. “Casey took advantage of that opportunity. We see it in practice every day. Our team has a lot of trust in her with the ball in her hands.

“We’ve really been talking to her about staying aggressive offensively and defensively and listening to the scouting report. That’s always an adjustment for freshmen.”

Kent State outscored Ball State 49-39 with Santoro at the point.

Young came into the game in the second quarter. With 3:07 left in the half, she grabbed an offensive rebound and scored. Two minutes later, she did it the same thing.

For the game, Young had seven rebounds and 12 points in 23 minutes, all by far season highs.

“Hannah had a really good week of practice, and it translated to the game today,” Recchia said.

“Toward the end of last year, she was playing well,” Recchia said. “2020 has been crazy with the coronavirus, and some people lost a little bit of their rhythm. If Hannah continues like that, she can really contribute.”

Winning with rebounding

After being outrebounded 9-7 in the first quarter, the Flashes dominated the boards for the rest of the game. They outrebounded Ball State 14-6 in the second quarter, then outrebounded the Cardinals 22-18 in the second half. Game totals were 43-33 Kent State.

Kent State had 17 second-chance points. Ball State had two.

“Rebounding is a mindset,” Recchia said. “We talked about after the first quarter, but the girls just decided that we were going to win this game with defense and rebounding. So they kind of flipped the switch.”

The Modkins collision

Modkins went out after she and Ball State guard Essence Booker banged knees hard as Booker attacked the basket. Booker lay on the court for several minutes and could put no weight on her leg as she was helped off the court. Ball State’s second-leading scorer at 12.8 points a game, Booker was on crutches after the game.

Modkins was on the ground for a shorter time, then managed to get to the KSU bench. She sat in the front row of the socially distanced bench for the rest of the game.

Asked after the game how Modkins was doing, Recchia said: “She’s OK. She’ll be all right.“

Modkins was Kent State’s second-leading scorer at 10.8 points a game and leader in assists at 3.5.

Thall the floor leader

As point guard, Modkins is the team’s leader on the floor. After she went out, junior forward Lindsey Thall took on more of that role.

“She and Mariah have become leaders of this team,” Recchia said. “So when Ri when out, Lindsey really stepped up. She was really talking to the team in all the dead balls, repeating what we were saying on the sidelines and keeping the five on the floor together.”

Thall scored 11 points, had five rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot.

Recchia: 1-0 as a coach

It was the first game Starkey had missed as a coach in 21 years, he told told Allen Moff of the Record-Courier before the game.

He and Recchia had talked throughout the week as the team prepared for the game.

Leading the team was a new experience for Recchia, who has been an assistant at Radford College before coming to Kent State. She was head coach at William Byrd High School in Vinton, Virginia, from 2007-10.

“It’s a lot different when you’re the one making the decisions,” she said. “Until you’re actually in that position, you don’t really understand just how many decisions go into a game day — from shootaround to even writing on the board.

“As an assistant, you can suggest. Then coach gets to and decipher through all that and decide what to actually tell the team. I feel very fortunate because (Starkey) allows us to have a big voice in practice and games. So the girls have been used to hearing our voices.”

Starkey tweeted congratulations to Recchia and the team minutes after the game.

Blackford said the change in coaching was different but not that big of a deal.

“She’s always coaching us,” Blackford said. “We talk every day.”

The San Diego seniors

It was Senior Day, and forward Monique Smith and Margaux Eibel started for the Flashes. Smith is the last member of Starkey and Recchia’s first recruiting class. Eibel walked on the team her freshman year and earned a scholarship that summer.

Neither have ever played big minutes, though Smith had made a difference on defense and rebounding in some key games. She had five rebounds in six minutes in KSU’s win at Eastern Michigan last week. Smith had started one game her freshman year.

Eibel has played in 24 games over four years and scored 18 points.

Both she and Smith are from the San Diego suburbs but had never met before they arrived at Kent State. They’re the only two California players I can remember playing for the Flashes in 30+ years of following the team.

Smith and Eibel played two minutes at the beginning of the Ball State game and checked out with the Flashes leading 6-4. Smith scored a point on a free throw. Both returned for the last 39 seconds.

The second-place Flashes

Four teams went into Saturday undefeated in the MAC. Only Central Michigan and Kent State still are. Central (5-0 in the league, 7-2 overall) beat Buffalo (4-1 and 7-3) 79-63 in Buffalo. Bowling Green (4-1 and 8-2) lost its first league game to Northern Illinois (4-5 and 2-2) at BG.

Kent State is 4-0. It has played one fewer game than than the other leaders because the Flashes’ Wednesday game against NIU was canceled after Starkey’s positive COVID test.

In other MAC games Saturday, Akron (1-4 MAC, 4-4 overall) beat Miami (1-8 and 0-5) 84-77 at Akron. Ohio (3-2 and 5-3) beat Toledo (2-3 and 6-3) 85-66 in Athens. Link to MAC standings.

Box score

Notes

  • Kent State made a season-high 45.8% of its shots. Ball State hit 37.1%. From 3-point distance, the Flashes were 7 of 20 for 35%; Ball State was 6 of 18 for 44%.
  • The Flashes committed a season-low 12 turnovers; BSU was even lower at eight. Off those turnovers, the Cardinals outscored KSU 16-4.
  • Sophomore guard Clare Kelly had a career-high four assists to lead the Flashes in that category. She also had seven points and two steals.
  • The last time Kent State started the MAC season 4-0 was 2010-11, when the Flashes won their fifth game and went on to finish 11-5 and second in the MAC East and 20-10 overall.
  • Oshlynn Brown, Ball State’s all-conference forward, led the Cardinals with 16 points and 13 rebounds. But she sat out eight minutes of the second quarter with two fouls. During that time, KSU took control of the game.
  • The game is the only meeting between the two teams in the regular season.

Wednesday at Akron

The Flashes travel 13 miles to the James A. Rhodes Arena for a 6 p.m. game against the Zips. The game will be on ESPH+.

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Kent State women's basketball

Blackford’s birthday double-double leads Flashes past Toledo and into 1st place

By on Sunday, December 13, 2020

Kent State’s Nila Blackford had 21 points and 15 rebounds, her second-straight double-double. (File photo by Scott Galvin from KSU team website.)

It was Nila Blackford’s birthday. And wow, did she celebrate.

Blackford had 21 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Kent State women to a 61-57 victory at Toledo Sunday. The win moves Kent State into early-season first place in the Mid-American Conference at 2-0. Overall the Flashes are 2-2. Toledo is 3-1 and 1-1 in the MAC.

Blackford’s double-double was her second in two games. She had 12 points and 13 rebounds in KSU’s 84-80 win over Ohio Friday.

“She was being herself — playing with energy and effort,” coach Todd Starkey said from the team bus on the way home. “A lot of the rebounds she got were just toughness rebounds. They were in traffic; she had to really get gritty in there and pull them out.

“We’ve been talking about how she’s really got to just treat every shot like a miss and pursue the basketball.“

Blackford’s 9.5 rebounding average now leads the MAC.

Kent State built an 18-point lead with 37 seconds to go in the third quarter. But the Flashes had to hold on to beat the Rockets, who hit a 3-point basket at the end of the third quarter, then outscored KSU 14-2 to start the fourth quarter.

“We fell asleep some down the stretch,” Starkey said on ESPN+ after the game.

“We made some boneheaded plays,” the coach said in his interview. “We also missed three wide-open 3s and missed three layups. If we make a couple of those, it’s a different situation.”

The Flashes had some big runs of their own earlier. They started the second quarter 12-0 and the third quarter 12-1.

“The two key numbers in that aren’t 12 points,” Starkey said. “It’s the zero and the one. You have to continue to get stops on defense. That’s really what fueled us when we were playing well — we really were making things difficult on them to score the ball.” 

Toledo’s 57 points were the fewest Kent State has allowed this year and well below their defensive average last season. Toledo has a solid offensive; it had averaged 76 points in its first three games.

The Flashes held Toledo sophomore Sofia Wiard, who had tied a school record with 42 points against Northern Illinois last week, to 14 points on 6-of-15 shooting. She was 16 of 25 against NIU.

Modkins keeps on scoring and leading

Point guard Mariah Modkins had her third straight game in double figures with 10 points. She has three assists and three steals and disrupted the Toledo offense all afternoon.

Modkins is listed generously at 5-foot-1, but she attacks and defends much taller players.

“She’s out there trying to prove people wrong,” Starkey said. “People have underestimated her her whole life, and that’s one of the reasons why I love her as player — she’s out there playing with a little bit of a chip on her shoulder.

“She’s been making a lot of tough gritty plays and has embraced her leadership role on the team.”

Modkins averages 10.5 points a game, not far from the averages of Asiah Dingle and Megan Carter, who players in the backcourt the last two years. Carter graduated and Dingle transferred to Stony Brook.

Modkins is seventh in the MAC in 3-point percentage (50%), eighth in assists per game (3.5), sixth in assist-turnover ratio (1.8 to 1) and 16th in steals per game (1.5).

Santoro is ahead of the curve

Freshman Casey Santoro played her second good game in a row, scoring nine points.

“She’s a tough, aggressive, smart player,” Starkey said. “She makes some natural freshman mistakes, but she understands the game and is ahead of the curve.”

Flashes big on the boards

Kent State’s rebounding was dominant against a smaller Toledo team. Kent outrebounded the Rockets 48-28 with 15 offensive rebounds and 13 second-chance points. Toledo had two offensive rebounds and no points on second chances. After Blackford’s 15 rebounds, Lindsey Thall had seven, Linsey Marchese six, and Santoro and Hannah Young four.

The end game

Toledo made 56% of its shots in the fourth quarter and got within three points twice, the last with 17 seconds to go.

But free throws by Blackford and Modkins and a strong defensive rebound by Blackford preserved the victory.

First place

The Flashes have the MAC’s only 2-0 conference record. Buffalo, Bowling Green and Central Michigan are 1-0 and have another league game before Christmas. Teams will then restart the conference season after New Year’s.

Four days ago Kent State was 0-2 after a disappointing loss at 1-4 Saint Francis.

Before that, the Flashes had lost 10 days of practice to COVID-19, then lost their opener 103-47 at No. 19 Ohio State.

Box score

Notes

  • After making a school-record with 16 3-point baskets on Friday, Kent State made only four of its 20 3-point attempts. Ohio was also 4 of 20.
  • Lindsey Thall had a career-high six assists to go with seven points and seven rebounds. “She is doing a good job of letting the game come to her and did what she needed to help us win,” Starkey said.
  • The last KSU player to score at least 20 points and have 15 rebounds was Anna Kowalska, who had 27 and 16 in 2007. Kowalska is now head coach at West Virginia Tech, an NAIA school in Beckley.
  • The Flashes had 19 turnovers for the second straight game; Toledo scored 14 points off of them. KSU scored 13 points from the Rockets’ 13 turnovers.
  • The NCAA decided last week to allow all transfers to be eligible this season. (Usually they have to sit out a year.) But days before the decision, Kent State’s Bexley Wallace was injured in practice. Starkey said she is out for the season. Wallace is a 6-3 junior transfer from Penn State.
  • Sophomore guard Katie Shumate’s father, JR, was at the game with her brother JT, a junior on the Toledo men’s team. JR Shumate was the coach of Katie’s Newark High School team.

Next Sunday vs. Duquesne

The Flashes have this week off for final exams and are schedule to play Duquesne at the M.A.C. Center at 2 p.m. Sunday. Duquesne is 2-1 and plays at Toledo Friday.

Starkey said it probably would be the team’s last game in 2020 unless an opponent “comes up that makes sense for us.” Without another game, the Flashes will have played just three non-conference opponents. A number of other games were canceled because of COVID-19.

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