Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Youngstown State’s Haley Thierry drives to the basket during the Penguins’ loss at Cleveland State on Saturday.

CLEVELAND — In a matchup between Youngstown State’s second-ranked Horizon League defense and Cleveland State’s No. 1 offense, something had to give.

In the end, it was the Vikings’ zone defense that stole the show on Saturday, as Cleveland State held the Penguins to their lowest shooting percentage and point total of the season, as YSU fell 79-37 at the Wolstein Center.

“They fly around in it and they’re very active within the zone,” acting head coach John Nicolais said. “Big thing was, we’ve gotta be a little bit deceptive and shot fake, pass fake to take advantage of that aggressiveness — and that’s the part we didn’t do today. When we’ve done that in years past, we’ve been able to get the ball where we needed to get it and then take advantage of them being over-rotated and get some quality looks, whether it be from three, at the high post, or down inside.”

Against a Vikings team that can score in bunches and in a variety of different ways, the start that YSU needed was anything but.

The Penguins opened the game 0-for-14 from the floor while turning the ball over seven times before scoring their first field goal, which came on a Malia Magestro three-pointer from the corner with 28 seconds left in the first quarter.

Offensive possessions were routinely a struggle for the Penguins against the Vikings’ length defensively. Shots were ferociously contested, passes were deflected or intercepted and it was hard for YSU even to find space around the floor.

“We came in knowing they were going to play zone,” junior guard Haley Thierry said. “We were trying our best to figure out ways on how we could be good offensively. I guess we couldn’t handle the pressure as much as we thought we could. We tried to get it into the middle of the paint, and once we did that we felt like we could get either an outside shot or a drive — which we did have some of those occasionally. But the pressure — they have really good pressure, and that’s what got us in the end.”

However, YSU was able to string together a 7-0 run to start the second quarter, which cut into the Vikings’ big early lead, but that was the lone bright spot for the Penguins offensively. Right after that run, the Vikings answered with a 10-2 stretch that built their lead to 20 and from there it was all Cleveland State.

Thierry led the Penguins with seven points, while Mackenzie Hurd had six points and Emily Saunders and Paige Shy each had five points. But as a team, YSU shot just 20.6% from the floor, and was worse from beyond the arc (18.2%).

Saunders finished with seven blocks for the Penguins, which were the most in a game for YSU since Tara Fleming had seven blocks against Butler in 2004. Saunders is one of just three players in school history with at least seven blocks in a single game since YSU moved to the Division I level in 1981-1982.

Even without leading scorer and reigning conference Player of the Year Destiny Leo, the Vikings have still been top-tier offensively this season.

Colbi Maples has picked up the scoring load in Leo’s absence, and was again strong against the Penguins. Maples had 16 points in the first half — matching her season average — before finishing with 17 on the afternoon to lead the Vikings.

“Their backcourt is incredibly talented, and they did a good job of setting some bold screens and coming off and being aggressive getting downhill to the basket,” Nicolais said.

As Maples led CSU in the first half, Sara Guerreiro and Jordana Reisma picked things up in the second half. Guerreiro, like Maples, also chipped in 17 points, while Reisma scored 14 for the Vikings.

“That’s one of the things that makes them as good as they are,” Nicolais said. “They’ve got a lot of people that can put the ball in the basket, so it can put you on your heels a little bit with matchups and everything. They’ve got a good squad, so it was tough today.”

YSU continues its three-game road trip with a visit to league-leading Green Bay on Thursday at 8 p.m.

“We’ve got several kids on the roster that know what it’s like to get a win in the Kress Center, and those are hard to come by for anybody — any team in the league up there,” Nicolais said. “A lot of them know what that looks like and how (this loss) felt, so we’ll try to use that as a little bit of a chip on our shoulder to get ready to play next week.”

nmadhavan@tribtoday.com