Tag Archives: Clare Kelly
Kent State women's basketball

Another shooting struggle, another loss for Kent State, this time at Western Michigan

By on Saturday, January 1, 2022
Playing her best game of the year, Clare Kelly led the Flashes with 17 points and four 3-point baskets. (KSU file photo by David Dermer.)

For Kent State, the big question after an 0-2 start in the Mid-American Conference is simple:

Where has all the shooting gone?

For the second-straight game, the Flashes shot far below their season average and fell on the road to Western Michigan 55-51.

In their 8-1 non-conference season, Kent State made 43.5% of its shots and 42% of its 3-point attempts. The 3-point average was third in the country.

But in its two MAC games, the Flashes have shot just 29.2% from the field and 27.6% on 3-pointers. KSU scored 60 points in its Wednesday loss to Toledo and 51 against Western Michigan. A week ago, they were averaging 77.8 points a game, second on the conference.

Against Western, the Flashes made 16-of-55 shots and 8-of-27 three-pointers.

Key things to know:

  1. Kent State shot more than 10 percentage points below its average in field goals and on 3-pointers while scoring its fewest points of the season.
  2. Western Michigan scored the first nine points of the game and led 13-2, but KSU came back to lead 51-50 with 16 seconds left. A 3-point basket by the Broncos won the game.
  3. Western outscored Kent in the paint 34-14. The Flashes missed 11-of-18 layups.

“We’ve got to put the ball in the basket,” coach Todd Starkey said. “We’re just missing good looks. We have to be better at finishing around the basket. We’ve got to be better at knocking down shots. We practice these things every day. I don’t have any magical solution.”

A very slow start

Kent State missed its first three shots of the game and turned the ball over three times in the first 1:49. Western made four of its first five shots.

After a timeout and some stern words from Starkey, the Flashes closed the margin to 15-10 at the end of the first quarter.

The teams played evenly — 41-40 KSU — for the rest of the game. After Kent tied the game 16-16, neither team led by more than four points.

In the fourth quarter, the Flashes took a 49-48 lead on a four-point play by Kelly, then made it 51-50 on a pass from Katie Shumate to Nila Blackford for a basket with 1:16 to go. After both teams missed shots and turned the ball over, Western’s Abby Voss hit a 3-pointer with 16 seconds to go to give the Broncos the lead. The Flashes missed a 3-pointer on their next possession, and WMU clinched the game with free throws.

Clare Kelly’s best game of the season

Kelly, who started 13 games last season, had averaged only two points a game this year off the bench. On Saturday, she led the Flashes ith 17 points, making 6-of-12 field-goal attempts and 4-of-9 three-pointers. She played a season-high 34 minutes.

“She was just doing what she’s capable of doing,” Starkey said. “She played well last game as well, especially defensively. She’s been putting a lot more effort and energy into it, playing through mistakes. She just played well. We didn’t have a whole lot of people really join her as far as playing well.”

Kent’s leading scorers, Shumate and Casey Santoro, went a combined 3-for-23 shooting. Hannah Young, who had posted double-doubles in KSU’s previous two games, scored two points and had one rebound. Shumate did have four rebounds, four assists and two steals. Santoro had nine rebounds, four assists and two steals. An 83% foul shooter going into the game, she made only 3-of-8 as KSU went 11-for-19 from the line.

Blackford had 10 points and a season-high 15 rebounds.

“She had a lot of rebounds, but we need her to score more,” Starkey said.

Blackford led KSU in scoring last season at 15.5 point per game, made the all-MAC second team and was a second-team preseason pick this year. She is averaging five points fewer ths year.

Blackford had five offensive rebounds. Kent State had 11 offensive rebounds total but scored only eight points from them.

Starkey said the team needed to do better converting rebounds into points.

“We’ve got to get more offensive rebounds, flip backs, easy baskets,” the coach said. “We’re struggling to score easy baskets right now.”

Kent State struggled inside, making only 7-of-18 layups. Western outscored the Flashes in the paint 34-14.

KSU outrebounded the Broncos 40-25. The Flashes have beaten every team they’ve played this season on the boards.

Lindsey Thall misses her first game in four years

Thall, KSU’s third-leading scorer and rebounder, had started all 83 games in her career. But she missed Saturday’s game “for medical reasons,” Starkey said.

Western Michigan was missing one of its best players, too. Sophomore Taylor Williams was out with COVID-19. She was one of the MAC’s best freshmen last season and has averaged 13.4 points and 9.0 rebounds this season.

Freshman Bridget Dunn started in Thall’s place. She scored nine points and had four rebounds.

Next: Miami at home on Wednesday

Kent State is now 0-2 in the MAC and 8-3 on the season. The Flashes will play Miami (0-1 MAC, 4-6 overall) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the M.A.C. Center. Miami lost to first-place Buffalo (2-0, 8-4) 88-83 at home Saturday. Buffalo ran out to a 29-12 first-quarter lead, but Miami outscored the Bulls the rest of the way.

Other MAC scores

  • Central Michigan (1-1 MAC, 3-8) 72, Northern Illinois (0-1, 3-6) 68 at Central.
  • Bowling Green (1-0, 6-4) 82, Ball State (0-1, 7-4) 58 at BG.
  • Toledo (2-0, 8-3) 64, Akron (0-1, 3-4) 58 at Toledo.

Box score

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Kent State women's basketball

Blackford keeps dominating, Flashes keep hitting 3s to stay in 1st place in MAC

By on Saturday, January 2, 2021

In her first start of the year, sophomore Clare Kelly scored 12 points, hit both her of 3-point shots, had three assists and two steals. She played a career-high 33 minutes. (Photo by Scott Galvin from team website.)

In Kent State’s three games in the early MAC season, Nila Blackford has been playing like an all-conference selection.

The 6-2 sophomore had her third double-double in three league games to lead the Flashes to a 67-61 win at Eastern Michigan.

“She’s started to really feel it here in her sophomore year,” coach Todd Starkey said. “Her effort has been phenomenal. When she starts finishing more around the basket and making free throws, she’s going to be a difficult stop.

Blackford had 14 points — 12 in the second half — and 13 rebounds against Eastern. Over KSU’s last four games, she’s averaged 12.5 rebounds. For the season, she’s averaging a double-double — 14.5 points and 10.0 rebounds.

The Flashes are tied for first place in the MAC, with two of their wins coming on the road against winning teams. Overall Kent State is 4-2. Eastern Michigan is 4-4 and 1-2 in the conference.

The sharpshooting continues

For the third time in four games, KSU made more than 50% of its 3-point shots. The Flashes were 8 of 15. They lead the MAC in 3-point percentage at 39.4%; in their three league games, they’re making 44.4%.

“We’ve got a lot of good shooters,” Starkey said, “and we had some very timely 3s. Mariah (Modkins) had two back-to-back to get us out of a funk in the first half. Clare (Kelly) had a big one in the fourth quarter.”

Next step, according to Starkey: “We’ve got to get a little better on our inside-out game (where post players feed shooters on the perimeter).”

KSU’s best defense of the season

The Flashes held Eastern to 32% shooting, lowest of any opponent by 5 points, and 2 of 11 on 3-pointers, the fewest against them all season. Eastern had 19 turnovers, the most against KSU so far.

“We were solid,” Starkey said. “We missed some assignments on (Areanna) Combs on drives. But she’s really talented. Any given night she can be the best player in the league. Our philosophy topical has not been to try and shut down somebody’s leading scorer but to play solid all the way around.”

Combs, who is seventh in the MAC with a 19.5-point average, had 29 points. But it took her 25 shots to make her nine baskets.

Kent State’s best defense came when they needed it at the end. Eastern made three-of-11 shots over the last seven minutes.

“We dug in a little bit more defensively and got a little bit better focus,” Starkey said. “We did a little bit better of a better job of keeping Combs out of the paint and making them shoot tough shots.”

Another good game for Mariah Modkins

Modkins had a career-high 16 points, including her two 3-point baskets.

“She’s literally 5-foot-zero — probably the smallest Division I player in the country,” Starkey said, “and she just comes out and leads our team and makes tough plays. She gets banged around, and she just keeps playing.”

After the game, Starkey said, Modkins was “kind of down a little bit.”

“She’s thinking about the turnovers that she didn’t want to have down the stretch as opposed to the fact she had a career high,” the coach said. “That’s how she’s wired. She expects a lot out of herself, and that’s why she’s playing a lot better this year.”

Last season Modkins split the point guard role with Asiah Dingle and averaged three points and 15 minutes a game. This season she’s averaging 10.8 points and 33 minutes.

A successful start for Clare Kelly, a successful game for Linsey Marchese

Sophomore Clare Kelly started her first game for the season, scored 12 points, made all four of her shots and both her 3-point shots, had three assists and a steal. Her 33 minutes were a career-high. She also guarded Combs through most of the second half and “by and large, did a good job on her,” Starkey said.

Because Kelly started, Linsey Marchese did not. But the 6-4 transfer from Indiana still had her best game in a Kent State uniform. Marchese scored 10 points and had five rebounds in 20 minutes, making four-of-five field-goal attempts. The 10 points beat her career-high at Indiana.

“Her best game by far,” Starkey said. “Hopefully that will be a nice shot in the arm for her and give her some confidence.”

Monique Smith: five rebounds in six minutes

Smith, a senior, had four rebounds in the last 2:29 of the first half when starting forwards Lindsey Thall and Blackford were on the bench with two fouls.

“She’s one of the key reasons why we won because we really needed her to help us close out the first half,” Starkey said. “Then she came in late in the game and played great defense. Some of the rebounds we got as a team were because she was doing a great job of boxing out. So her play probably led to more like 10 rebounds because of how hard she was playing.”

Less good: turnovers and foul shooting

Kent State committed 23 turnovers, its highest total of the season. Eastern Michigan, which has been known for years for high-pressure defense, scored 24 points off of them. Kent State scored 13 off of EMU’s 19 turnovers.

The Flashes missed 14 of their 31 foul shots. If they made half of those, the game isn’t close. Eastern was 21 of 26. But Modkins and Shumate made six of six free throws in the last 1:02.

“The nice thing about it is we’re finding ways to win games, but we’re not playing our best,” Starkey said. “There’s definitely a room for improvement, and the good thing is that the team recognizes that.”

Box score

Notes

  • Kent State made 45.7 of its field-goal attempts, its best percentage of the season. The Flashes outrebounded EMU 39-37
  • The game was both teams’ first since Dec. 21. So far Kent has had the beginning of its season delayed three weeks because of COVID-19, opened at Ohio State on three days notice, had seven days off, played three games in five days, had eight days off, played Duquesne at home, then had 12 games off before Saturday. “It’s really hard to get in a rhythm,” Starkey said.
  • Kent State has won four games in a row at Eastern and seven of eight overall since Starkey became head coach in 2017. Before then, the Flashes had lost 11 in a row.
  • Ce’Nara Skanes, who had 23 rebounds in Eastern’s previous game against Tarleton, had 14 Saturday. She leads the MAC with a 10.5 average. Blackford is second at 10.0.

Coming home

The Flashes have two home games next week, though fans aren’t allowed because of pandemic protocol. They will play Northern Illinois at 2 p.m. Wednesday. The Huskies are 1-2 in the MAC and 3-5 overall. They beat Western Michigan 73-56 at home Saturday.

On Saturday, KSU will play Ball State (1-1 in MAC, 3-3 overall) at noon. The Cardinals were playing a late Saturday game against Bowling Green.

Other MAC scores

  • Central Michigan (3-0 MAC, 5-2 overall) 90, Ohio (1-2, 3-3) 87 at Ohio.
  • Toledo (2-1, 6-1) 65, Akron (0-3, 3-3) 57 at Toledo
  • Buffalo (3-0, 6-2) 75, Miami (0-3, 1-6) 67 at Miami.
  • Northern Illinois (1-2, 3-5) 73, Western Michigan (0-3, 3-5) 56 at NIU.
  • Bowling Green (3-0, 7-1) 89, Ball State (1-2, 3-4) 55 at Ball State.

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Kent State women's basketball

Suddenly, Flashes are opening Wednesday at Ohio State

By on Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Lindsey Thall takes aim at the basket against Ohio State last season. She scored 32 points in KSU’s75-65 loss.

As fast as games can disappear in this COVID-19 basketball season, a new one can appear.

Kent State announced Monday morning that it would play its first game of the year 48 hours later.

So the Flashes will open their 2020-21 season at noon Wednesday against Ohio State in Columbus. The game will be on BTN+, the Big Ten’s paid streaming service. Here’s link to broadcast. Details on how to sign up are in the “Notes” section below.

“We are excited about finally playing,” Kent State coach Todd Starkey told Allen Moff of the Record-Courier. “I’m not sure what we’ll look like on only three days of practice. Ohio State is a very talented team. I think they have a chance to win the Big Ten this year.”

Junior point guard Mariah Modkins put it like this in an interview: “We’re just excited to touch the ball, honestly, and get up and down the floor.”

Modkins said the fall on campus has been tough, but the key has been “just being able to go with the flow.“

“Everything is up in the air,” she said. “You never know from day to day, honestly from hour to hour. So just being ready to do whatever is one of the most important things.”

Modkins the team’s pause in practice because of COVID “kind of sucked.“

“We were so close,” she said (just 10 days before their first game after having been able to practice all fall). “We’re ready to go now. Everybody’s excited.”

It will be the second game between KSU and Ohio State in two years and the second in 39 years. The Buckeyes beat the Flashes 75-65 at the M.A.C. Center last season before the biggest women’s crowd (4,272) in Kent State history. Before then, the teams hadn’t met since 1981.

Like Kent State, OSU had its first game — against Akron — canceled last week because of COVID-related issues (on the Zips team). The Flashes had their first game — at Northern Kentucky — canceled after COVID issues in Kent.

The Buckeyes played their first game Sunday, beating Duquesne 82-47. The Flashes are scheduled to play Duquesne of the Atlantic 10 on Dec. 21.

Ohio State started the season ranked 20th in the country and moved up to 19th with the Duquesne win. The Buckeyes have five starters back from last season’s team, which went 21-12 and tied for fifth in the Big Ten.

Top starter is 6-4 senior forward Dorka Juhasz, an all-Big Ten selection last season. She averaged 13.2 points and 9.4 rebounds last season and made 40 three-point shots last season. She had 10 points and 12 rebounds in 23 minutes against Duquesne.

Guard Jacy Sheldon led the Buckeyes in that game with 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting. Guard Braxtin Miller had 16 points, including two of OSU’s three 3-point baskets.

Ohio State outrebounded Duquesne 52-37 even though the Dukes have a 6-4 center and two other 6-2 starters.

Duquesne coach Dan Burt after the game said his team had been able to have only six or seven full practices all fall while Ohio State hadn’t had any kind of shutdown. “It was like lions waiting for their meat, and unfortunately today we were that meat,” he told pittsburghsportsnow.com.

Kent State also likely will start a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 front line. The 6-4 center is Linsey Marchese, a transfer from Indiana who will be playing her first game for KSU. She would have played against Ohio State two years ago.

Kent’s 6-2 forwards are junior Lindsey Thall, who set a school record by making eight 3-point baskets against Ohio State last season, and Nila Blackford, an all-MAC freshman team member last season who led the Flashes in rebounding.

Kent State will look different at guard, where starter Megan Carter graduated, leading scorer Asiah Dingle transferred, and second-leading scorer Katie Shumate is injured.

Kent State’s pregame media notes list Marchese, Thall, Blackford, Modkins and Hannah Young as probable starters.

Modkins started 13 games at point guard last season; Young started four and guard. Also expect sophomore guard Clare Kelly and sophomore wing Annie Pavlansky, along with 5-4 freshman guard Casey Santoro and 6-4 freshman center Lexi Jackson, to see considerable action.

That’s if everyone is healthy, and this year, that’s never guaranteed for any team.

Notes

• The game will at the Covelli Center, the new 3,700-seat home of Ohio State’s volleyball, gymnastics, wrestling and fencing teams. No fans will be allowed; Columbus and Franklin County are under the state’s highest “purple” COVID rating.

• Best price to watch the game on BTN+ is to buy a $7.95 monthly pass for Ohio State games only. It will be renewed automatically every month, so cancel after the game if you don’t want to watch more Buckeye sports. You can buy a season pass for OSU events for $79.95. You’ll get Ohio State men’s and women’s basketball games that aren’t shown on the Big Ten Network, plus sports like gymnastics, baseball and softball. You can also subscribe to get all sports from all Big Ten Schools or all of the Big Ten’s games in a single sport like women’s basketball.

Other key links

KSU’s home opener is Saturday vs. Ohio U.

Kent State’s second game, assuming no COVID problems, will be Saturday against Ohio University at the M.A.C. Center. Tipoff is at 2 p.m., but no fans will be allowed. Game will be streamed on the KSU website.

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