Penguins impress crowd

The Youngstown State men's basketball team had their third chance at the big win before the big crowd and the Penguins didn't let this one get away.
With over 4,000 looking on for the third time this season, the Penguins battled tooth and nail to the finish to upend the Bulldogs 64-62 for their first win over a Butler team since joining the Horizon League.
As they've done for the most part this season, the Penguins hung tough with the Bulldogs for the entire 40 minutes and used some good defense and a couple of clutch free throws by Domonique Crawford to pull out the victory.
"We had a very physical week of practice because we knew it was going to be a physical game," said YSU coach Jerry Slocum.
The Penguins were coming off a very disappointing effort against Cleveland State, a game they were never in and lost, 63-50.
"We closed the book on Cleveland State on Monday and started to get ready for Butler, just as we'll close the book on Butler [today] and get ready to play UW-Milwaukee on Thursday night," said Slocum.
Earlier this week Slocum said that the Penguins next two games were probably the biggest two games of the season. They've got one down and one more to go.
Thursday's gameslated at 7:35
Thursday's encounter with UW-Milwaukee will have a 7:35 starting time, 30 minutes later than it was originally scheduled.
The reason being that the Cleveland Indians caravan will be at YSU earlier that evening and is scheduled to end up around 7 p.m.
The YSU athletic department is giving everyone who attends the Indians Caravan a free ticket to the YSU game and they want to make sure everybody has time to get to their seats.
Hoops for Hungergame Feb. 2
Also, in conjunction with Giant Eagle and WFMJ-TV along with the Second Harvest Food Bank, YSU will hold its second annual "Hoops for Hunger" Game on Feb. 2 when the Penguins square off against Illinois-Chicago at 7:35 p.m.
That game will also be the final doubleheader of the season as the YSU women will take on Butler in the opener at 5:15.
Fans attending those games will receive a free general admission game ticket with the donation of a non-perishable food item at the door on game night.
All fans in attendance will receive a YSU/Giant Eagle basketball key chain.
Since the YSU men's team defeated Butler last Saturday, that leaves only UIC as the only team that the Penguins have not defeated since joining the Horizon League in the 2001-02 season.
Football schedulegetting closer
YSU athletic director Ron Strollo says that he's getting very close to rounding out the Penguins' 2006 football schedule.
As of right now the Penguins have nine very good games on the slate, including the seven Gateway Conference teams along with non-conference opponents Maine and Penn State.
"We need two home games to round out the schedule," Strollo said, "and we're very close to getting both of those games and we should know something definite by the end of this week."
Although Strollo won't give out any names, it is believed that one of the opponents will be a I-AA non-scholarship team that would replace Slippery Rock in the season opener.
The other could be UC-Davis, a I-AA team that originally wanted a home-and-home deal with the Penguins, but YSU couldn't fit a return deal into the schedule.
Since then Strollo has made several offers to the school, to come here for a good guarantee and with no return date.
UC-Davis, which knocked off Stanford last season, appears to be interested and another reason they would like to come here is so that the team can visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame during their stay.
XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.