Santoro leads Penguins in final college season

YOUNGSTOWN — No matter where she's gone throughout her basketball career, Casey Santoro has been a winner. In four years of high school basketball and now six years of college basketball, she's never been part of a team with a losing record. In high school, she was part of a Bellevue program that went 92-11 over four years. At Kent State, she was on two WNIT teams and during her two years at Florida Gulf Coast, her teams made it to the NCAA tournament each year. This year for her final season of eligibility, Santoro took her winning pedigree to Youngstown State, where as the team's oldest and most experienced player, she's helped turn the Penguins into one of the top teams in the Horizon League. "I don't know if we would have had or continue to have the season that we have had without her," YSU coach Melissa Jackson said. "I'm so thankful that she chose her last season here to be a Penguin, because she really has taken this program to new heights. We've got a ways to go still, but so very proud of what she's been able to do. "She's just a winning player that comes up with winning plays, and I'm really happy she's on our team." Examples of Santoro's winning plays aren't hard to find. She provided an early scoring spark against IU Indy on Feb. 15, scoring nine of her 17 points in the first quarter. A few days prior in YSU's overtime win over Robert Morris, she had a key late steal in the fourth quarter and made six straight free throws in overtime. Against Milwaukee on Feb. 5, she made three 3-pointers in four possessions to help the Penguins put away the Panthers late. The list goes on and on. But, even though Santoro leads YSU in scoring (12.5 ppg), assists (3.2) and minutes played (35.6 per game), her greatest impact for the Penguins has likely been unquantifiable. "She really has just seamlessly fit in. She's come in and really done a great job of leading (a young team) and doing it her own way," Jackson said. "She's not a super vocal kid. She's vocal when she needs to be. I think she's even grown in that area this year. "I've challenged her a little bit to continue to do that, but she just gives us that level of experience that has played in a lot of big games." As a coach's kid from a basketball family, Santoro's winning mentality and competitiveness come from her upbringing. Her father, Kory, was her coach at Bellevue, while her brother, Jalen, was the Lady Red's JV basketball coach for two years and was a decorated athlete at Bellevue in his own right before playing football at Tiffin. "My dad was definitely hard on me, and I was definitely the typical coach's kid," Santoro said. "I remember in fifth grade, he used to coach us to do pushups in the middle of a timeout. It helped make me the player I am today. "It built a lot of coachability and strength, just being able to take coaching and then just knowing the game and being a point guard." While at Bellevue, Santoro also played for three years alongside her younger sister Cory, who played at Clarion (Pa.), Lander and Canisius. Although their paths didn't cross in high school, her oldest sister, Carly, played college basketball at Bowling Green for three years, before ending her career at Ohio State. Santoro learned a lot growing up going against her siblings. Despite being 5-foot-4 and often the shortest player on the floor, she plays with a noticeable chip on her shoulders. She's learned to tailor her game to that and it hasn't stopped her from making an impact during her career. "They pushed me to be better. I didn't want my little sister to be better than me. Every day, we competed really hard in practice and she made me better because she was there," Santoro said. "(Carly) got the size in the family. So I think always going against her as well helped me. "Having older siblings that were athletes and a younger sister that's an athlete definitely made me a lot more competitive." At 21-8 overall and 14-5 in conference play, YSU currently sits alone in second in the league standings with one game to go — Wednesday at home versus Detroit — before the Horizon League tournament begins March 4. Now as the season winds down for the Penguins, Santoro is trying to make the most of her final year of college basketball. "It's honestly been great. I knew coming here that we had a lot of potential to win," Santoro said. "Obviously you never know what you're going to get going into a season, but we've played some great basketball so far. We've put ourselves in a really good position. "I'd say, for it being my last year, it's everything I would have asked for."