YSU softball limited to 2 hits

Illinois-Chicago defeated the Penguins, 7-0.

CHICAGO — The Youngstown State softball team was limited to just two hits and made two late-inning errors in a 7-0 loss to Illinois-Chicago in the first round of the Horizon League Softball Championship Thursday at the Loyola Softball Field.

UIC’s Sarah Clynes fired the two-hit shutout with four strikeouts. Clynes took a no-hitter into the top of the sixth inning before Kristin Bair’s one-out single up the middle.

YSU senior Becky Hibner held the Flames in check through four innings before UIC’s Alicia Abbott hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the fifth to take a 3-0 lead.

The Flames capitalized on two Penguin errors for a four-run sixth inning.

The Penguins face seventh-seeded Butler in an elimination game today at 10 a.m.

Before the tournament, YSU senior McKenzie Bedra was named to the All-Horizon League first team for the second straight year. Freshman Rochelle Vanyi was named to the all-newcomer team.

Bedra, YSU’s career leader with 34 home runs and 119 RBIs, is batting a team-best .338 with seven doubles and a school-record 11 home runs. The Bowling Green native also has 32 RBIs, 24 runs scored a .646 slugging percentage.

She is the third YSU player to earn back-to-back first-team all-league honors and the first since Tiffany Patteson in 2003-04.

Vanyi, a native of Rocklin, Calif., is batting .319 with 10 doubles and a single-season school-record 11 home runs. She has also driven in 21 runs and scored a team-high 27 runs with a .630 slugging percentage. Vanyi is also just the second player in school history to record at least 10 doubles and 10 home runs in the same season.

Wright State senior Jherica Williams was named the league’s player of the year, Cleveland State sophomore Amanda Macenko was named pitcher of the year and UIC freshman Alicia Abbott was named newcomer of the year. Angie Nicholson of Cleveland State and Randy Schneider of Valparaiso University were named co-coaches of the year.

Bedra also has been named to the ESPN the Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District IV third team.

Bedra carries a 3.36 grade-point average in exercise science.