Penguins lose one, win one against Vikings

By Pete Mollica

The Penguins share third place with the Vikings in the Horizon League.

LORAIN — Youngstown State senior Erich Diedrich spent most of Saturday’s second game of a Horizon League doubleheader walking around.

Diedrich drew walks on three of his first four at-bats before coming up with the bases loaded in the eighth inning against Cleveland State with the scored tied 6-6.

Diedrich worked the count full and would have taken another walk, but when the pitch came he drilled it into deep left-center field, driving in a pair of runs and leading the Penguins to a 9-7 victory.

Cleveland State won the opener 9-8 scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Despite losing two of three games in the series the Penguins (17-25, 9-7) managed to hang on to a share of third place in the league standings with the Vikings (19-20, 9-7).

Sophomore Aaron Swenson (4-2) was the winning pitcher for YSU; he’s 4-0 with four complete games in Horizon League play.

“When we need that big game he seems to be there every time,” said YSU coach Rich Pasquale. “Not only was it a big win for us in the standings, but after Friday night and then losing the opener in a close game, we needed this for a confidence builder.”

Swenson threw 139 pitches but said he didn’t realize it and wasn’t tired at all.

“You get out there and the adrenaline starts flowing and you really don’t think about it,” Swenson said. “I’m sure that I’ll feel it tomorrow, but today out there in the late innings I felt fine and [was] just throwing like I always do.”

The Penguins built a 5-0 lead, but Swenson’s only two bad innings were the third and fourth when he allowed six runs and seven hits and let the Vikings regain the lead.

Diedrich was impressed by the young pitcher.

“He came in after they went ahead and told the team, ‘If you get the lead back I’ll shut them down the rest of the way’ and he did,” said Diedrich.

The veteran catcher and first baseman said he’s seeing the ball better than ever.

“I would have probably taken a walk in that [ninth-inning] situation, but the way I was swinging today and then the pitch came right down the middle of the plate, I knew where it was going,” he said.

The Penguins scored once in the first inning on an RBI single by Joe Iacobucci, two in the second on Eric Marzec’s double and RBI singles from C.J. Morris and Josh Page, then two more in the third on only one hit, a two-run single by Morris.

Cleveland State came back with a three-run homer by Alex Kerins in the third and three more in the fourth, including the sixth home run of the season for former Canfield High standout Josh Geric.

The Penguins tied it in the seventh when Anthony Porter singled home Diedrich and then went ahead it in the eighth on Diedrich’s blast. YSU scored another run in the ninth with the help of a Vikings’ error.

In the opener the Penguins got on the scoreboard first, scoring a pair of runs in the third inning on four singles, including RBI hits by Page and Diedrich.

The Vikings took the lead in the fourth thanks to a two-run home run by Kyle Bischof over the right field fence and then with two outs, Bobby Cash doubled and John Foco followed with an RBI single.

The Vikings added three more runs in the sixth as they collected five hits, including triple by Brad Buell.

YSU added a single run in the seventh on singles by Koehnlein and Sean Lucas, but the Vikings tacked on two more in their half of the inning on one hit a hit batsman and a balk by relief pitcher Cody Dearth. Pasquale was ejected arguing the balk call.

The Penguins pulled to within two runs in the eighth, scoring three times on two hits, two hit batsmen and a Cleveland State error. Lucas had an RBI single and Page a sacrifice fly.

In the top of the ninth with one out Porter and Marzec both singled and then Anthony Munoz reached on an error to load the bases. Cory Hornyak singled home one run and Porter scored on an error to deadlock the game.

That set up the Vikings’ game winning rally, which came with the help of the Penguins. Kerins doubled to lead off the inning and when Kyle Bischof sacrificed him to third, Lucas threw wildly to first allowing Kerins to score.

mollica@vindy.com