Local Sports Digest

YSU
3 Penguinsgarner honors
YOUNGSTOWN -- For the fourth time in four years, Youngstown State softball player Tiffany Patteson has received All-Horizon League accolades after being named to the All-Horizon League Second-Team for the second straight season. Junior Karlie Burnell joined Patteson on the second-team while freshman Kristen McDonnell was named to the Horizon League All-Newcomer Team.
Patteson, who was a first-team selection as a freshman and sophomore, leads the Penguins with a .345 batting average, 12 doubles and three triples. This season, she set the YSU career records for hits, doubles, and runs scored.
Burnell, who went 12-8 overall during the regular season, finished with a 7-2 record with two against Horizon League opponents and a 3.03 earned run average. Burnell picked up a victory against each Horizon League team and ranked fourth in the circuit in league wins.
McDonnell, who tied the YSU single-season home run record, ranked tied for second in the Horizon League with 10 home runs and batted .321 with 30 runs batted in.
AREA
Lyell set for fight
TAMPA -- Niles junior middleweight, Billy Lyell (11-2, 2 knockouts) has completed training for the first nationally televised co-main event of his career.
He will appear Friday on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights at 9 p.m. in the eight round co-feature against Clarence Taylor (10-8-2, 5 KOs) of Wilmington, Del.
The six-bout card , promoted by Starfight Promotions, is at the A La Carte Pavilion.
Lyell is trained by Jack Loew and managed by Pat Nelson, James Docciccio and Loew, all from Youngstown.
The 12-round main event pits Pittsburgh native Monty Meza-Clay (20-0, 13 KOs) against Edner Cherry (19-4-2) for the NABA lightweight championship.
New field at CBC
CANFIELD -- For the first time, the players in the age 5-6 division of the Canfield Baseball Club have a home of their own.
Through a donation from the Simon Roofing Co., a new diamond for the 5-6 division was built at McCune Park. The field has 60-feet bases and a home run fence, 90 feet from home.
The new diamond is the tenth at the park. About 700 players compete in the Canfield Baseball Club.
Titan honors
NEW WILMINGTON -- Several Youngstown-area student-athletes at Westminster College have been honored with Westminster Exceptional Sports Performances of the Year Awards.
Brian Fadden, a guard and forward for the Titans' basketball team from Mohawk High, shared the men's Senior Scholar Award for top cumulative grade-point average with baseball player Brenton Gilmore. Fadden, majoring in mathematics, and Gilmore, majoring in history, both have 3.51 GPAs.
The women's Comeback Athlete of the Year Award went to Sarah Henry, a sophomore softball pitcher from Bristol High. Henry bounced back from a career-threatening injury last year as a freshman to record a 3-3 record and 1.96 earned run average with 41 strikeouts this year.
The women's Unsung Hero Award was won by Katie McDermott, a junior volleyball player.
Fadden also won the basketball team's Most Valuable Player award.
Other Youngstown-area MVPs were Erin Hinks (Mineral Ridge), a senior outside hitter on the volleyball team; Amy Carroll (Sharon), a junior on the women's cross country team; and Jessica Cooper (Laurel High), a sophomore on the women's track squad.
College roundup
*ERIE, Pa. -- Joanna Fergus, a senior first baseman on the Gannon University softball team from Austintown Fitch High, was named to the 2006 All-Great Lakes Intercollegiate Conference first team and also was selected as the GLIAC player of the year.
She is the first player in Gannon softball history to make GLIAC Player of the Year.
Fergus has a .405 batting average, 687 slugging percentage and .456 on-base percentage. She also set three Gannon records this year for career homers (28), single-season homers (12) and RBIs (54).
Fergus also has been a defensive standout, playing errorless ball in 52 straight games, a streak of 348 successful fielding opportunities.
Fergus has helped Gannon to a 39-16 record and a berth in the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Regional Tournament this week at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville
Gannon, which placed third in the GLIAC Championships, will be the No. 2 seed for the NCAA meet -- its highest postseason seeding in the program's 30-year history. The Lady Knights will open play against West Virginia Wesleyan Thursday at noon.
This marks a school-record second straight year that Gannon has made the NCAA meet, and the third time overall.
*NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. -- Bethany College senior Rich Majewski was named Presidents' Athletic Conference baseball hitter of the week.
The center-fielder batted .444 (4-9) with a home run, four RBIs and four runs scored as Bethany won two of three from Thiel.
Vindicator staff/wire reports