Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes. YSU's Malia Magestro drives prior to making a shot while being fouled in the second half of the Penguins' 73-50 Horizon League tournament win over IUPUI on Tuesday.

YOUNGSTOWN — In following with its results over the past month, Youngstown State continued its upward trend Tuesday.

With a well-rounded effort on both ends of the floor, the Penguins won their first Horizon League tournament game since the 2020-2021 season with a 73-50 dismantling of IUPUI in the first round.

“We want to finish playing on a high level, (and) high note,” interim head coach John Nicolais said. “We want all of our older kids, our fifth-year seniors — it was important to send them off on the right note here at home. We haven’t the last couple of times, actually the last two years we weren’t able to get a tournament win here at home when we had a home game, which is unfortunate. But it’s nice to get one and survive and advance.”

Despite the win, it was a bittersweet night for the Penguins’ six fifth-year seniors, as Tuesday was their final career game played under the lights of the Beeghly Center.

No current player has been a part of more games at YSU than Mady Aulbach. With 139 games played, she’s played the second-most games in program history, behind only former teammate Chelsea Olson, who played 142 games in her Penguins career.

“Looking back, I remember those first two years felt so different than how everything feels now,” Aulbach said as she reflected, holding back tears in her eyes. “After that season, we had the big changes of 10 people leaving and seven new people coming in. I got all these new teammates, and I had no idea how it was going to go. I’m just really grateful that I got to play at Youngstown and I really want this to last as long as we can make it last.

“From the coaches believing in a 5-foot-3 girl and letting me come here and all the friends I’ve been able to make, I’m forever indebted to this place. So I’m just really thankful I’ve got to be playing here for this long.”

IUPUI presents a unique matchup, in that they don’t usually play a true point guard or center in most of their rotations. The Jaguars put a big, long, rangy lineup out on the floor, with each member of its starting five ranging from 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-2.

It’s a matchup that gave the Penguins issues this season, as YSU split its regular season meetings with IUPUI, with both games being decided by single digits. But this time, YSU led from beginning to end against the Jaguars.

“We knew coming into this game that they were going to be bigger than us and they would probably go at a few of our smaller guards,” Malia Magestro said. “I think we really handled that with poise and we know we limited that as much as we could. We practiced switching so that we could get the bigger girls onto those girls that are posting up, and I think we really executed that well.”

The result was one of YSU’s more balanced scoring games of the season. Seven different players scored at least five points, with Magestro leading the group with 18 points. Haley Thierry chipped in 12 points, while Abby Liber scored 13 points off the bench.

YSU led by 11 at halftime thanks to a sharp-shooting first half from Thierry, in which she knocked down a trio of three-pointers. But a 22-5 run between the third and fourth quarters, which Nicolais said was spurred by the defense, helped the Penguins blow the game open.

“I thought we did a really good job of defending them,” Nicolais said. “(IUPUI) just came off a game with Oakland where they put up 92 points, so I think that had our players’ attention. We talked about the fact that last time we played them, they shot 39 free throws. We didn’t do a great job of defending one-on-one and we didn’t do a good job of getting in gaps and trying to plug things up to where they couldn’t get downhill. But (Tuesday) we did that — we did it pretty effectively and forced outside shots.”

The Penguins forced the Jaguars into 18 turnovers and turned those into 19 points. But a key part of YSU’s run was Liber and Paige Shy off the bench.

The duo had combined for just two points at halftime, but exploded in the second half for a combined 18 points.

“It was a big lift — when Abby got in, we didn’t have to rely on Emily (Saunders) staying on the block every single possession. We could interchange and have her flash high-low,” Nicolais said. “Abby did a good job of posting up the mismatches on the switches. … Then Paige coming in gives us size and she can guard some of those bigger forwards that like to post up. (She) came in and knocked down some big shots for us. So if we can get some bench production in postseason play, that’s huge.”

The Penguins now move on to the quarterfinals to face No. 2 seed Green Bay in Wisconsin on Thursday. The Phoenix swept YSU during the regular season.

Have an interesting story? Contact Neel Madhavan by email at nmadhavan@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @NeelMadhavan.