CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Bob Dunn era at Cleveland State opened with the kind of win a new coach remembers. The Vikings went into the Bryce Jordan Center on Monday night and beat Penn State 62-61, holding off a frantic final minute to give Dunn a victory in his first game on the Cleveland State bench, according to the recap published by Cleveland State athletics.
Macie Taylor led the Vikings with 20 points and five assists, and she did her most important work at the free-throw line. Cleveland State athletics reported that Taylor went 6-for-6 from the line over the final 1:44, stretching the lead to 62-55 with 14 seconds left — just enough cushion when Penn State buried two late three-pointers to cut the margin to a single point before the Viking defense survived the last possession.
Chloe Oliver, Sarah Hurley and Alexa Hocevar added nine points apiece for Cleveland State, per the university’s recap. Paula Pique grabbed a team-best nine rebounds, Oliver added eight boards to go with her five assists, and Hocevar pulled down seven rebounds as the Vikings won the game inside even while losing the overall rebounding battle.
Penn State outrebounded Cleveland State 45-41, according to Penn State athletics, and the Lady Lions got a first career double-double from sophomore Ava Black — 17 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, as reported by Onward State, Penn State’s student news outlet. Devyn Quigley added 12 points for the hosts, who were playing their first game under new head coach Tanisha Wright.
The game was tight from the start. Cleveland State took a 27-25 lead into halftime, and after the teams traded three-pointers early in the third quarter, a 6-0 Viking run pushed the lead to 36-30. Penn State closed the third on a 9-2 run to tie it 44-44 heading into the fourth, according to the Cleveland State recap.
The fourth quarter turned on small plays. After Silvia Gonzalez tied the game at 47-47 with a three-pointer at the 9:01 mark, Hurley answered with a three of her own on the next trip. Late in the quarter, a Hocevar layup and a pair of Pique free throws made it 56-52 with 1:58 left, per Cleveland State athletics, and Taylor’s perfect trip-by-trip work at the line did the rest.
The win carries history for the program. Cleveland State athletics noted it was the Vikings’ first victory over a Power 4 opponent since the 2012-13 season, and HoriZone Roundtable reported it was the program’s first win over a Big Ten team since it beat Indiana on December 2, 2012. It was also just the second meeting ever between the two schools, and the first since the 1984-85 season, according to the university.
Context matters here: this was a true road game against a Big Ten roster, in that roster’s own arena, on opening night, with a first-year head coach. The Lady Lions shot just 31.8 percent from the field, as reported by The Daily Collegian, but Cleveland State still had to make every late free throw and get one final stop to finish the job — the kind of close-out that road underdogs so often fail to complete in November.
The Vikings’ next test connects directly to another Ohio opener NewsForce247 covered this week: Cleveland State travels to Bowling Green on Thursday, November 5, for a 7:00 p.m. game, according to Cleveland State athletics. Bowling Green’s women opened with their own statement win, an 82-59 rout of Georgia Southern powered by freshman Silva’s 25-point debut.
Ohio’s other Monday openers showed how thin the margins were across the region — Akron’s men won at Louisiana while its women lost by a single point in the final seconds. Cleveland State’s women landed on the right side of their one-point finish, and they did it in one of the hardest road environments on their nonconference schedule.
What happens next is a quick turnaround: a Thursday trip down I-75 to Bowling Green, where the Vikings will try to prove Monday was a foundation and not a fluke. For Dunn, the standard is now set by his own debut — a defense-first road win over a Big Ten team, earned at the free-throw line in the final seconds.
Photo: JonRidinger, CC BY-SA 4.0