Vikings end YSU’s baseball season

By Pete Mollica

The Penguins finished 23-33.

NILES — It was a very disappointing ending to the 2008 season for the Youngstown State baseball team.

The Penguins were eliminated from the Horizon League tournament with a 10-4 loss to Cleveland State, but not before battling back from an early 5-1 deficit.

YSU got to within 5-4 before the Vikings scored five runs in the ninth inning at Eastwood Field Thursday.

The Penguins (23-33), who were the No. 3 seed in the tournament, were eliminated with after two games.

“It was disappointing because of the way we were playing coming into the tournament,” YSU coach Rich Pasquale said. “I’m most disappointed for my nine seniors because they got me through this first season and I’m really going to miss them.

“I don’t want to make excuses but the four days off we had between our last game and the tournament could have had an effect on our hitting in the opener, but I know it was the pitching that we faced, not the layoff,” Pasquale said.

The Penguins hit better Thursday than they did in Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to Valparaiso, but the pitching was suspect.

Senior starter Chuck Schiffhauer (1-6) pitched the first five innings, allowing five hits and three runs, but none of them were earned. He also walked five batters, four of them in the fourth inning when the Vikings scored three times.

But the bullpen, consisting Thursday of seniors Lucas Engle and Ryan Sellman, junior Ryan Wackerman and senior Joe Antinone, combined to allow six hits and seven earned runs over the final four innings.

The Penguins finished with 11 hits, including two from senior Erich Diedrich who made his final game a big one with a double and home run, and three RBIs.

His home run was the fourth this season and the 27th of his career, breaking the school record of 26 set by Adam Cox from 2001-04.

“The record is nice and it’s exciting, but I’d much rather still be playing with my teammates in this tournament,” said Diedrich. “That’s what I’m really going to miss the most about the season ending.”

The Penguins scored first in the third inning when junior John Koehnlein doubled to right to lead off. He moved to third on a passed ball and scored on Diedrich’s grounder to short.

Schiffhauer breezed through the first three innings, although he did allow a hit in each inning, but in the fourth he lost his control.

He walked the first two batters in the inning and after they were moved up by a sacrifice, he walked two more and forced in a run. Former Canfield High standout Josh Geric drove in the second run with an infield grounder and Tom Carter brought in the final run with an infield single.

The Vikings added a run in the sixth without a hit as Engle walked John Brown, wild pitched him to second and after a ground out, Engle threw another wild pitch to allow him to score.

They added their fifth run in the seventh on a hit batsman, a stolen base and a RBI single by John Foco.

The Penguins finally got to Cleveland starter Brian Long (4-5) in the seventh inning. With two outs, senior Mike Turjanica homered deep over the right field wall. The next inning Diedrich hit a line shot into the YSU bullpen for a two-run homer and the Penguins were within 5-4.

In the ninth the Vikings broke things open. Sellman got the first two batters, but allowed a single and hit a batter before he was relieved by Wackerman, who faced just one batter and allowed an RBI single to Foco. Antinone then came on and threw a wild pitch for one run then allowed three straight hits, including a double by Geric, and three more runs scored.

Former Howland High standout Vasili Pahoulis retired the last four YSU batters to record his fourth save of the season.

mollica@vindy.com