Penguins on plus side of three-game series

By Pete Mollica

Joe Iacobucci homered in the first game, a 4-3 victory over Illinois-Chicago, before YSU dropped the nightcap, 9-5.

NILES — Youngstown State baseball coach Rich Pasquale couldn’t have been more happy with his team’s effort this weekend at Eastwood Field.

The Penguins split a doubleheader Saturday with Horizon League leaders Illinois-Chicago and took the series two games to one.

Saturday the Penguins won the opener, 4-3, behind a two-run homer from redshirt freshman Joe Iacobucci of Boardman and six strong innings of pitching from sophomore Corey Vukovic, before dropping the nightcap, 9-5, after blowing a 4-1 lead.

The Penguins (12-20, 5-4 Horizon) didn’t hit the ball well, getting five hits in the winning effort and just seven in the loss, but they took advantage of those hits and played very well defensively until the seventh inning of the nightcap.

“We did some very good things this weekend,” said Pasquale. “We executed very well and played very good defense all weekend. Winning two out of three from the top team in the conference is very satisfying.

“We kind of let that second game today get away from us with the one bad inning, although I don’t think they hit one ball out of the infield the entire inning,” he added.

In Saturday’s opener the Penguins jumped out early on the Flames (20-13, 9-3).

They scored once in the first when senior Sean Lucas tripled with one out down the right field line and scored on senior Erich Diedrich’s sacrifice fly.

In the second, again with one out, freshman Eric Marzec singled to center and then Iacobucci slammed a shot over the right field fence for a 3-0 lead.

“I went up there looking to make contact, but he threw me a fastball right down the middle and I caught it good,” Iacobucci said. “It felt good right from the contact.”

After UIC closed to 3-2 with single runs in the sixth and seventh innings, the Penguins added an insurance run in the bottom of the seventh when Iacobucci singled to lead off the inning and was sacrificed to second by Anthony Munoz. After a wild pitch put Iacobucci on third, he scored on Josh Page’s sacrifice fly.

Vukovic (2-1) pitched into the seventh before senior Joe Antinone came on in relief to get out of the inning and then Marzec pitched the final two innings, allowing a run in the eighth before setting down the Flames in the ninth to record his second save.

In the nightcap the Flames scored first off starter sophomore Aaron Swenson, but the Penguins came right back to score three in the bottom of the first that was sparked by a three-run double by sophomore Anthony Porter to deep center field.

The Penguins increased their lead to 4-1 in the fourth when Porter reached on an error and was sacrificed to second by Marzec. He scored on Iacobucci’s single to left.

Penguins’ starter Aaron Swenson pitched into the seventh, but struggled although YSU committed two of its four errors in the inning.

UIC had three hits in the inning, but only one got out of the infield, while Swenson and reliever freshman Paul Klein issued three walks, one intentionally, and Klein hit a batter as the Flames scored six times and sent 11 batters to the plate to break open the game.

Diedrich had three of the seven YSU hits in the nightcap, while Porter had a pair of hits, including the double.

UIC’s leadoff hitter Steve McGuiggan had four hits in the nightcap to lead the Flames and scored three times. He also had their only extra base hit, a double to open the contest.

The Penguins play host to Niagara on Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Cene Park, then play Ohio University Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Eastwood. They will play a Horizon League doubleheader Saturday against Butler and another doubleheader Sunday against Milwaukee. Both of those twinbills will be at Eastwood Field.

mollica@vindy.com