YSU track, baseball to host

May is going to be a pretty busy month for Youngstown State athletes both on campus and off.

The Penguins are hosting two Horizon League championships next month, the league’s outdoor track and field Championships and the postseason baseball tournament.

The track and field event will be held May 8-9 at the Penguins’ track facility on campus, while the baseball tournament will be held at Eastwood Field in Niles on May 20-24. Both events will feature some outstanding athletes and hopefully will draw a lot of local fans.

YSU track coach Brian Gorby, a Boardman native, has made the Penguins a dominate factor in these championships, especially in the women’s division.

Since the Penguins joined the Horizon League in 2001, Gorby and his track teams have captured seven team championships either indoor or outdoor and six of those have been in the women’s division.

As host to this year’s event the Penguins will again be one of the favorites to win the title. They already claimed this year’s women’s indoor championship, which they hosted, but it was held at Kent State’s Indoor facility.

Success comes with local talent

The amazing thing about Gorby’s success at YSU is that for the most part he’s done it with local talent. On this year’s team alone he has 16 area performers for the men’s team and 14 on the women’s team.

Since the Penguins don’t have many home meets, and I can’t remember when the last one was held here, this will be a great opportunity for area fans to get out and see some of these young men and women competing for their school and their community.

The meet was originally slated to be held May 9-11, but there were some conflicts involving one school’s graduation ceremony so the event was moved ahead. A couple of the longer events, such as the heptathlon and the decathlon, will be held at an alternate site, to speed things along at YSU.

The baseball team (17-25, 9-7 Horizon) will be hosting the Horizon League tournament for the second time since joining the league. Everybody remembers back in 2004 when the Penguins, seeded No.8 in the tournament, swept through four straight games and captured their first conference championship and a berth into the NCAA tournament.

The Horizon League loved playing the tournament at Eastwood Field and that was probably a big reason the tournament has returned in such a short period of time.

This season the team has had its ups and downs, but there is little doubt from anyone who had seen them play that the Penguins have the talent to compete with anyone in the league.

Pitching is key to team’s success

Pitching, like it is with any division of baseball from little league to the majors, is always the big question and so it is for the Penguins.

Sophomore Aaron Swenson (4-2) is 4-0 against the league and has pitched four complete games and has become one of the leaders on the staff. Sophomore Corey Vukovic, a McDonald native, has struggled his last two outings, but is still be counted heavily upon down the stretch run. Senior Chuck Schiffhauer is another leader on that staff, while seniors Adam Kalafos and Lucas Engle will also be needed during the tournament run.

The Penguins are tied for third place in the conference standings with Cleveland State, a team they lost two of three games to over the weekend. Illinois-Chicago and Wright State hold the top two spots in the standings. The Penguins still have 10 conference games remaining, including five against second-place Wright State, three of them this weekend at Eastwood Field.

The Penguins will be in action Wednesday at Kent State in a 3 p.m. start.

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