Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes. YSU fifth-year guard Malia Magestro scores her 1,000th career point on a driving layup during the Penguins' win over St. Bonaventure on Tuesday night at the Beeghly Center. Magestro led YSU with 15 points in the victory.

YOUNGSTOWN — Coming into Tuesday night’s game, Malia Magestro needed just eight points to reach 1,000 for her Youngstown State career.

At the 3:12 mark of the second quarter, she became the 24th player in Penguins history to reach the milestone on a driving layup along the baseline. Magestro would go on to lead YSU with 15 points in a 60-52 win over St. Bonaventure.

“It was my Dad’s birthday too, and that’s all he wanted as a present for his birthday,” Magestro said. “It’s really awesome to reach this milestone. Of course, getting it on a night where it was a really big game for us — I think a statement win — is just so awesome to do with this team. I’ve had a lot of good teammates over the years, and I’m just really excited to be able to do it with this team on this special night.”

The fifth-year guard and Hermitage, Pa. native has spent her entire collegiate career in Youngstown, and as one of the team’s oldest returning players, she’s been invaluable in the transition from the previous coaching staff to the current one.

“Malia is a heckuva player,” head coach Melissa Jackson said. “I’ve been watching Malia since she was a freshman in high school. Obviously I recruited her really hard, didn’t get her. But now I get to coach her, so that’s pretty cool. She’s been amazing with the transition, and she’s been an unbelievable leader. She’s so consistent every single day in practice. When it’s a close game and tight like that, you need players like her on the floor to steady stuff and do it on both ends of the floor. So I’m really happy for her, it’s a huge accomplishment.”

During the first seven minutes, Magestro was actively looking for her shot.

She took seven shots in the first seven minutes, hitting three of them to give her seven early points. Her next shot didn’t come until the start of the second quarter, but she missed it and didn’t shoot again until there was 3:12 left in the half. But this time, she made it count.

“Last game, I know I was holding back a little bit on my threes — I was not shooting the first shot when I was open,” Magestro said. “So coming into this game, my mindset was, if I’m open, shoot it. I think they were kind of backing off of me a little bit. That’s why I was firing up shots at the beginning and just reading what they were doing to me on defense.”

With how the Bonnies were defending YSU in the post, it wasn’t just Magestro doing a lot of shooting.

Twenty-one of the Penguins’ 32 first-half shots came from beyond the arc, and YSU finished with more than half (31-of-60) of its shots coming from three.

Even though the Penguins made just six of them, they have the green light to keep shooting.

“We’re a great three-point shooting team. We’re going to continue to shoot the three,” Jackson said. “St. Bonaventure is a really good defensive team, and that’s what they give up. They help a lot from the strong side. They jam and under — we don’t see that a whole lot. So we knew going into the game that was going to be open. It was going to be very hard to establish a post game because they crowd and they dig a lot. So I told them, let it fly, and we’ll continue to let it fly.”

YSU was able to contain most of the Bonnies’ scorers, with the exception of Dani Haskell.

Haskell got hot early and provided most of the Bonnies’ offensive output in the first two quarters. She scored 17 of St. Bonaventure’s 25 points in the first half and finished with a game-high 24 points.

“Coming into this game, we knew she was a shooter, and she was a key player we had to pay attention to on defense,” junior Abby Liber said. “Coming into the second half, switching up on her was a big thing we had to do and not let her get those shots off — just know where she was on the court and stop her from shooting.”

With St. Bonaventure trying to creep back into the game in the fourth quarter, Magestro, Liber, senior Jewel Watkins and sophomore Bella Samz each hit key baskets down the stretch to help the Penguins keep the Bonnies at arm’s length.

“I think that’s big for a young team to hold onto a lead, especially Bonaventure — they got a lot of seniors, juniors, a lot of experienced players on that floor and we’re a bunch of young pups out there that are learning each other,” Jackson said. “So, very proud of them for keeping the lead and holding on. I think Malia’s three that she hit was huge, obviously Bella’s shot, then we got Jewel to the free-throw line. So I thought we executed pretty well downt the stretch.”

In addition to Magestro’s 15, Watkins finished with 14 points, while Samz had 10. For the second straight game, Liber had finished in double figures on the glass with 11 rebounds.

In order to make up last week’s canceled game against North Dakota, YSU added a new game to the schedule this week. Next up, the Penguins will host Division II Clarion (Pa.) on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. at the Zidian Family Arena at the Beeghly Center.