Sophomore guard Hannah Young played one of her best games of her career Wednesday, scoring 14 points and grabbing eight rebounds against Northern Illinois (4-11, 0-4 MAC). 

“[It was a] really good game for her, one of her better games in a Kent State uniform and in front of a lot of family. She’s got family that lives about 15 minutes from here and her mom flew up for the game,” coach Todd Starkey said in a post-game interview. “So, really happy that Hannah was able to have a good game in front of her family and we really needed her down the stretch there.”

Young drained four clutch foul shots at the end of the game to secure the Flashes’ 79-71 win over NIU.

“I was pleased with how she played throughout the game,” Starkey said. 

The Flashes led Northern Illinois by 18 points in the fourth quarter, but the Huskies went on a run, cutting Kent State’s lead to single digits with seconds to go in the game.

“We fell asleep and then at the end there we had an 18 point lead and they cut it to four and we were able to survive,” Starkey said.

The Flashes had four players in double figures: sophomore guard Asiah Dingle with 20 points, freshman forward Nila Blackford with 19 points, Young with 14 points and freshman guard Katie Shumate with 11 points. 

The Flashes secured a difficult road win by converting 33 of their 79 points off of 24 NIU turnovers and scoring 42 points in the paint.

“Any road win in the league is good and we’ll take it, learn from it and continue to get better,” Starkey said. “I like what I’m seeing at times, there’s some signs of good basketball there, but we just got to be a little more consistent all the way through.”

Kent’s next game is Saturday at 2 p.m. on the road against Miami University (8-8, 1-3 MAC).

Contact Kathryn Rajnicek at [email protected].