'Our fight is not in question': Kent State basketball leaves impression in March Madness return

SOUTH BEND — Six-foot redshirt senior guard Katie Shumate led everyone on the floor in rebounding.

Six-foot-1 freshman post Janae Tyler craned her way around taller defenders all afternoon to make 8 of 11 shots from the field.

And 5-4 sophomore guard Dionna Gray calmly handled the ball against a ferocious, turnover-hawking defense to finish with five assists against just three turnovers.

That's all one needs to know about the fight No. 15 Kent State women's basketball showed in its first March Madness game since 2002, which ended in a 81-67 loss at No. 2 Notre Dame.

"I think we're walking out of this building and our fight is not in question," Golden Flashes coach Todd Starkey said. "Our players came to play. Some things didn't go our way early. We had a hole to dig out of, but we had — I guess you don't dig out of holes, you crawl out of them — but we did some crawling. They kept fighting tooth and nail."

Over and over, the Mid-American Conference champion Flashes bounced back off the mat.

Six scoreless minutes in the first quarter couldn't dim Kent State's fight. Neither could a 20-point deficit less than two minutes into the second quarter.

"I would say that it was just our will and our determination," Shumate said. "We were playing for each other and everyone knew that we didn't want to go out by giving up and so we were going to continue to press forward and keep trying to make it a game and play hard."

Katie Shumate impresses in Kent State basketball finale

Shumate is the player who made the usually smooth-speaking Starkey choke up a bit in his opening remarks after Saturday's loss.

"One of the best competitors I've ever coached," Starkey said. "Katie and I have continued to get along for five years because she hates to lose as much as I do and her teammates all love her, and that's the most important thing."

Shumate didn't just snag rebounds, of course. She had a team-leading 20 points, including two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter as the Golden Flashes battled to within 12 points.

But, still, to lead every player on the court in boards?

"I've never been the tallest or the strongest so I kind of just have to will myself to do it," Shumate said. "Just the energy that we get and my teammates get from when we get second possessions and we push that transition. It's just if you put your mind to it, you can try to do it."

Freshman Janae Tyler shines down low

Tyler, meanwhile, followed an impressive MAC Tournament with an arguably even more remarkable afternoon in South Bend, making six of her first seven shots from the field and finishing with 18 points.

"We've always believed in Janae, but just the way that she's been able to step up," Shumate said. "Especially in big moments, it seems like Janae's always there and she's always fighting and she's just showing us what she's capable of and staying under control, and I think as a freshman that's extremely hard to do."

Against a Fighting Irish team with substantially more length, Tyler finished strong repeatedly against taller defenders.

"It's definitely just knowing their weaknesses and how to get to the basket being undersized," Tyler said. "[It's] knowing just to get around their body rather than just trying to go straight up. That's really all I can do."

Dionna Gray shows poise up top in March Madness debut

Gray's role this year was magnified after starting point guard Corynne Hauser suffered a season-ending knee injury.

Well, there are few greater magnifying glasses in college hoops than going against Naismith Award finalist Hannah Hidalgo, who entered Saturday's game leading the nation with 4.6 steals per game.

Gray (12 points, five assists, three turnovers) handled all of that with a quiet grace, along with making 2 of 4 shots from deep.

"The grit, the toughness, the fight that she had, she wasn't backing down from anybody today," Starkey said. "That's the Dionna Gray that we recruited to Kent State."

A fight to build on for Kent State

The sheer fight of Shumate will be hard to replace.

The same should be said of graduate students Abby Ogle, who drew a charge, forced a turnover and hit a runner in just 7:53 of playing time, and Mikayla Morris, who had three assists from the post.

That said, don't expect the fighting Flashes to go anywhere.

If you watched Gray and Tyler compete Saturday, that much is crystal clear.

"There's a lot of lessons to learn," Starkey said. "I think the biggest thing is that it was possible."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Dionna Gray, Katie Shumate, Kent State women's basketball display grit