Penguins showing promise

It’s been a shaky start to the basketball season for the Youngstown State men and women.

Both teams have been hovering around the .500 mark which might not be considered that bad, since both teams have played twice as many games on the road as they have at home.

Jerry Slocum’s men’s team is 3-3, having played five of six games on the road where they finished 2-3.

Slocum has been high on his young team and for good reason.

He has a lot of good young players and for the first time in the three years he’s been here he finally has some depth and a versatile bench.

Just don’t ask Slocum about how good his team is right now, especially coming off Saturday’s 61-50 loss at Eastern Kentucky. The coach didn’t have many good things to say about his team’s effort against the Colonels, who had lost four straight before Saturday’s contest.

Still, the Penguins are exciting to watch and they have balance and — for the first time in a long while — have some scoring ability inside with the play of junior Jack Liles and senior John Barber.

Liles tied a career high Saturday when he scored 18 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. He scored all 18 points in the second half, but didn’t have a whole lot of help.

Barber was the only other Penguin in double figures with 11 points.

Oddly enough it was against Eastern Kentucky a year ago that Liles first set his career mark of 18 points in a game played at the Beeghly Center.

Liles and the other Penguins kind of took a back seat a year ago offensively as they spent more time watching Quinn Humphrey and Keston Roberts score.

But with those two gone the Penguins are finding out that just about any one of the eight or nine players that Slocum will put on the floor is capable of stepping up.

“We knew things would be different this year,” Slocum said earlier. “We also knew that we had more depth than we’ve ever had and that we had some excellent young players who were going to help right away.”

But the three freshmen, who have played a key role thus far, Vance Cooksey, Vytas Sulskis and Dan Boudler, are still freshmen and are going to have those games where they play like freshmen, which is what happened Saturday.

The Penguins return home Wednesday night to meet Kent State, which Slocum feels might be the best team in the Mid-American Conference this year.

The Penguins will take on the Golden Flashes at 7:35 p.m., which will be the second game of a doubleheader, one of eight the men and women will play this season. The YSU women will meet Central Michigan in the opener at 5:15 p.m.

Speaking of the women, Tisha Hill’s group finally got into the winners’ circle and she’s hoping that things will quickly turn around for her Penguins.

Hill came into this season with very high expectations, especially with a team that returned all but one player from a year ago and all five starters along with several outstanding new additions.

But then the Penguins lost their first three games, again all on the road. Hill was disappointed, knowing her team was capable of much better.

The Penguins are now 3-3 following Saturday’s 58-57 win over St. Francis and also have played five of the six games away from home. They now have three wins by a combined 10 points, but the fact that they are winning has Hill confident that things are starting to turn in the Penguins’ favor.

Seniors Jessica Schloemp, Heather Karner and Lauren Branson are the heart of this team, but junior Ashley Pendleton and junior Kelsey Gurganus are both carrying their share of the load this year.

Hill still hasn’t got the help she’s been looking for off the bench this year, but its early and she’s hoping that will all come around over the next couple of weeks.

XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.