Colonials ice the ‘Guins
Photo credit: Samuel Anthony
November 29, 2017
Jocelynne Jones and the rest of her Colonials squad dominated the Penguins of Youngstown State in an 84-52 victory on Wednesday night.
It was a matchup which saw all nine players from RMU score, four of whom reached double digits.
But it was Jones who was the standout player of the night as she eclipsed the 100 career steals mark, making her just the 16th player in the history of Colonials women’s basketball to reach that mark.
She finished the day tied for the game’s leading scorer with 15 points, eight rebounds, four steals and three assists.
“I’m just out there doing what my team needs me to do,” said Jones. “I’m just out there working hard. If they need me to play defense that’s what I’m going to do,”
Youngstown State came out of the gate battling with the Colonials, ending the first quarter only down 22-19. The ‘Guins were using their ability to shoot from long range to go toe-to-toe with the more physical play of Robert Morris.
Youngstown would shoot four-for-nine from three-point range in the first quarter. But that was as good as it would get, as they would proceed to only shoot six-for-22 in the game’s final three quarters.
“You could see how deadly they were from the perimeter,” said Robert Morris head coach Charlie Buscaglia. “So as soon as we started fixing that three-point line a little better and closing out and contesting, we created a lot more turnovers and we created a lot more congestion in there.”
That was when the RMU defense kicked in, and players like Megan Smith, Mikalah Mulrain and Nneka Ezeigbo began to dominate in the paint and on the boards.
Those three would account for 26 points and more rebounds themselves (19) than the entire Youngstown State team combined (18).
Robert Morris would outrebound the Penguins 40-18, but that was only part of their dominance.
Megan Smith would lead the team in rebounds with 12, and her seven points had her flirting with a double-double. Mikalah Mulrain would go a perfect five-for-five on the night finishing with 11 points.
But in the end, it was complete team supremacy that led to Robert Morris’ largest win of the season.
The Colonials would rack up 11 steals, 11 offensive rebounds, scored 31 points off the bench, 15 second-chance points and 21 points off of turnovers.
Coach Buscaglia’s squad commanded this entire game, leading for almost 35 minutes of game time, while the Penguins led for just 1:53, their largest lead being two points and their last lead being 19-18 in the first quarter.
“As soon as we starting to take over defensively, that is when we started to control the game,” said Coach Buscaglia. “At the end, we just got into a really good flow offensively. When you work hard and you keep pushing to do better, it’ll happen,”
The team will remain at home as they battle Monmouth this Sunday at 1 p.m.
