Defense carries Kent State to rout of Western Michigan in MAC women's basketball

The Kent State women’s basketball team played one of its best defensive games of the season in a 64-38 Mid-American Conference win over Western Michigan Saturday at the M.A.C. Center.

“We’re obviously really pleased with the outcome, especially defensively,” Golden Flashes coach Todd Starkey said. “To hold a conference [opponent] to 38 points, you have to be doing some things right.”

Graduate student forward Lindsey Thall and senior guard Clare Kelly each scored 12 points for Kent State (13-6, 5-3), which is fourth in the MAC standings. Ball State and Bowling Green are tied for first in the conference at 7-1.

Freshman guard Tatiana Thomas used 4-of-5 shooting from the field to score eight points for the Flashes.

“I feel more confident than I did in the beginning of the season,” she said, “but hopefully my confidence continues to grow.”

Sophomore forward Bridget Dunn, who has played in all but one game this season, sat out with an injury.

Kent State leads for final 39:15

The Flashes led the entire game for all but the first 45 seconds. Graduate student guard Hannah Young made two 3-pointers and freshman guard Corynne Hauser and Kelly each had one each in the first quarter.

“We’re really pleased with the way we’re starting games,” Starkey said. “We’ve really been focused in practice and in games in trying to start more aggressive, more confidence with things. I think we’ve started to see some evidence of that coming out a little bit.”

Kent State outscored Western Michigan 17-0 in points off turnovers en route to a 34-20 halftime lead.

“It’s not really a focus of ours to try and create a ton of turnovers,” Starkey said. “We don’t want to gamble a lot, but when we do get turnovers we want our conversion rate to be high. It wasn’t a new tactic or new game plan for that. I thought we just played a little bit better basketball.”

The Flashes, who were on top 51-25 heading into the final quarter, led by as many as 35 points down the stretch.

The Flashes finished the afternoon 24-for-61 (39.2%) from the field, 8-24 (33.3%) behind the arc and 8-11 (72.7%) on free throws.

“We just did a really good job of getting the ball into the middle of the floor and then passing out from there and switching places,” Thall said. “We were a little bit disconnected defensively to start off, but we did a really good job of stopping right there and fixing it.”

Up next for Kent State is the school down the road

The Flashes play at Akron (13-5, 4-3) at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The Zips, who are on a two-game losing streak, have gone 8-2 at home this season.

Last season, Kent State lost 73-64 to the Zips.

“Everybody wants to talk about the rivalry and that type of thing, and it certainly brings a little added element to things,” Starkey said. “It’s great that our parents and their players get to play in rivalry games like this because not everybody has those, so it’s a great thing for college sports.”

Akron is led by freshman forward Reagan Bass, who scores 17.6 points per game.

“It’s just a rivalry game – if you’re not up for that game, what are you doing?” Thall said. “We’re just going out of the game with a lot of confidence. Obviously from this game scoring-wise we should be nothing but confident.”

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Lindsey Thall, Clare Kelly lead Kent State women to MAC win