YSU ousted in tourney

CHICAGO — Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Dan Luczak threw an eight-hit shutout and got help from three inning-ending double plays as the Panthers beat Youngstown State 9-0 in an elimination game in the Horizon League baseball tournament Friday.

The Penguins (19-37) finished 2-2 in the tournament, their second-best mark in the event. The 2004 team won the tournament with four straight wins.

Coming off a game in which they scored 15 runs on 16 hits against Cleveland State earlier in the day, the Penguins couldn’t put a string of hits together against Luczak and ended up stranding 10 runners.

Luczak (4-7), a 6-foot-6 junior right-hander, threw 127 pitches, walked four and struck out one.

“We gave it all we had today,” YSU coach Mike Florak said. “In the beginning we came out ready to play, and it was just a long battle. We never gave up; we just ran into a guy that pitched really, really well.”

Went ahead by 4-0

The Panthers got two runs on a hit and an error in the second, and Jesse Hart’s solo homer led off a two-run third that made the score 4-0.

UW-Milwaukee scored a run in each of the fourth and fifth innings, and Luczak worked out of jams to keep the lead intact.

“He had a different arm angle, being a big, tall guy,” Florak said of Luczak. “It was a different look, and we hit some balls sharply that didn’t fall. The wind also swallowed a few balls up instead of helping us out like the past few days.”

The Penguins loaded the bases with one out in the top of the fifth when Brent Parks walked and Anthony Munoz and John Koehnlein singled. Luczak then induced an inning-ending double play to end the fifth and another in the sixth with runners on first and second.

Koehnlein and Erich Diedrich finished with two hits apiece, and Parks, a senior, singled in his final game.

11 players in first meet

YSU starter Corey Vukovic allowed five runs on six hits in 3 1/3. Vukovic was the first YSU freshman to start in the conference tournament since Corey Ohalek in 1999. He was one of 11 players Friday who were in their first conference tournament.

“These guys will have tournament experience,” Florak said. They’ll figure out what it takes to keep plugging away and not give up any at-bats. We have to keep going forward and keep fighting.”

John Koehnlein went 2-for-5 against UW-Milwaukee, finishing the season with a school-record 28-game hitting streak.

YSU 15, Cleveland State 9

Senior Lou Gattozzi hit a pinch-hit two-run homer in the eighth inning that gave YSU the lead, and the Penguins went on to score seven times in the ninth inning to defeat Cleveland State.

Youngstown State led three different times before Cleveland State went ahead for the first time when three-run sixth for a 6-4 lead. YSU got a run across on Koehnlein’s single, and Gattozzi’s first home run of the season in the eighth put the Penguins up for good, 8-6.

Parks’ three-run double highlighted the seven-run ninth. Cleveland State (14-44) scored three times in the bottom half of the inning.

Josh Page had a game-high three hits for YSU while Parks drove in four runs and scored three times.

Aaron Swenson picked up his third win of the season, holding the Vikings to one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief. Andy Svitak earned his ninth save.