Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. YSU redshirt-junior forward Faith Burch (22) looks to score over Robert Morris's Naomi Barnwell (7) during the Penguins' home loss on Saturday at the Beeghly Center.

YOUNGSTOWN — Consistency has been hard to come by this season for the Youngstown State women’s basketball team on a game-to-game basis.

After a much-needed win on Wednesday, the Penguins hoped they could build off of it coming into Saturday’s game against Robert Morris. But instead, a “hungry” Colonials team, coming off a five-game losing streak, proved to be the aggressors, as RMU handed YSU a 67-61 home defeat at the Zidian Family Arena.

“We talked a lot about how hungry Robert Morris was going to be,” head coach Melissa Jackson said. “Sometimes — and I’ve been doing this long enough — you look at your players, and they just don’t have it. For whatever reason, we didn’t have it tonight. We gotta figure that out. We gotta find that consistency factor, especially if you want to string some wins together in this league. You gotta do it on both ends of the floor. Credit to Robert Morris because I thought they were the hungrier team.”

YSU came out early and knocked down some shots against the Colonials to take a three-point lead by the end of the first quarter. Senior guard Jewel Watkins opened up a game-high 21-point performance by hitting a pair of early threes during the period.

“I thought we had a decent start,” Jackson said. “I thought we were the aggressors a little bit in that first quarter and got them in some foul trouble, but we gotta continue to do that for 40 minutes.”

From there, the Colonials took over with their dominance in the paint. After trailing by five, RMU went on a 16-5 run during the first half to take a lead they would not relinquish the rest of the afternoon.

The Colonials continued to attack the Penguins down low, whether by driving and finishing at the basket or by posting up and going to work in the post. RMU outscored YSU in the paint 36-20.

“They were just very aggressive getting downhill,” Watkins said. “They kept doing the same thing, and if it wasn’t a foul, it was a layup. So that was just kind of hard for us to adjust to.”

Led by 20 points from Noa Givon, nine different players got on the scoresheet for RMU, as the Colonials shot 53.1% from the floor.

“For us to give up 67 points on our home floor, and for them to shoot at a high clip at 53%, that’s just not what we do,” Jackson said. “That’s not who we are.”

By the end of the third quarter, Robert Morris built its largest lead of the day, taking a 52-37 advantage into the final period.

But despite the deficit, the Penguins still had enough for one last push, as they opened the fourth quarter on a 10-0 run to cut the Colonials’ lead to five.

Watkins and redshirt junior forward Faith Burch each converted and-1s, while fifth-year guard Malia Magestro hit a pair of free throws during the run.

“Our team fights, so I know they’re going to fight till the end. That’s a culture thing, that’s something that we have really instilled, whether it’s in a practice or whether it’s in a game,” Jackson said. “We’ve been down big in games, and they continue to fight. So I know they’re going to do that, but it was just too late. We gotta handle some of that stuff, when we want to trap and press, especially in late-game situations. We gotta be a little more locked-in in those situations.”

With 1:21 left, YSU had the lead down to four after a 3-pointer from freshman guard Erica King, but the Penguins just weren’t able to get over the hump to close things out down the stretch.

Next up, YSU will travel to the Wolstein Center on Thursday to take on Cleveland State at 7 p.m.

“It’s not about Cleveland State right now, Obviously Cleveland State’s a heckuva team, and they’re one of the best teams in the league and we’ll talk a lot about them. But it’s about Youngstown State and we gotta get better,” Jackson said. “We gotta evaluate the film. We gotta evaluate everything that happened today.”