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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -
DeAirra Goss,
Nevena Markovic and
Akilah Sims all scored in double figures leading the IUPUI women's basketball team to a 66-57 win over Youngstown State Saturday afternoon at the Beeghly Center in its final non-conference game of the season.
All throughout this season, the Jags bench has helped the team's scoring output providing 32.3 points per game on average, but on Saturday, Goss, Markovic and Sims carried the load offensively combining for 49 of the team's 66 points. Goss led the way with 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting, while Markovic and Sims, who made her first start since Nov. 13, both added 16 points. All three players also did their part on the boards grabbing seven apiece helping the Jags win the rebounding battle, 37-27.
"Road wins are never easy and today was no different. The kids buckled down and got enough rebounds and stops to pull out the win," head coach
Austin Parkinson said. "Akilah and DeAirra both had incredibly efficient games offensively and [
Katie Comello] gave us some quality minutes at both ends of the floor."
On the other side, Heidi Schlegel had one of her most efficient games of the season hitting 11-of-16 field goals en route to a game-high 22 points. Liz Hornberger and Latisha Walker added 19 points and 10 points, respectively, for YSU, but the rest of the Penguins scored just six points on a combined 3-of-20 shooting from the floor.
Four different players scored in the first six minutes as the Jaguars jumped out to a 15-6 lead, including five points from Markovic and four from Sims, but over the next six minutes Youngstown State slowly trimmed its deficit to one, 22-21, following a Walker lay-up.
An Ashley Johnson jumper kept the Penguins deficit at one, 28-27, with 4:51 on the clock, but IUPUI clamped down on defense for the remainder of the half allowing it to increase its cushion going into the half. Down the stretch of the first half,
Dawn Luster hit a pair of free throws with a little more than three minutes to play, Sims connected on lay-up with 1:59 to go, and Goss buried a jumper with two seconds left in the half to boost the Jaguars halftime lead to 34-27.
Out of the half, the Penguins were able to trim their halftime deficit to six by the 16:16 mark, but both teams went cold for more than four minutes until Comello buried a big three to push the IUPUI cushion to nine, 41-32.
By the 6:39 mark, YSU closed within a field goal at 47-45, but that's when Markovic and Goss both stepped up combining to score the Jags next 10 points during a 10-3 run to up that lead back to nine, 57-48, with a little less than four minutes to go.
From that point, the Jaguars advantage never dipped below seven before eventually finishing off a 66-57 triumph.
For the second consecutive game, the Jags managed to shoot better than 80 percent from the line by hitting 17-of-19 free throw attempts against the Penguins on Saturday. YSU on the other hand struggled hitting just 6-of-13 from the charity stripe giving IUPUI an 11-point edge at the line.
The Jaguars now turn their focus to Summit League play, which begins in a big way on Thursday, Jan. 9, when IUPUI heads to Brookings, S.D., to take on Summit League preseason favorite South Dakota State at 8 p.m. ET.