Injuries walloping Penguins

It is almost unbelievable what has happened to the Youngstown State football team in the first six weeks of the season.

Injuries keep popping up week after week and it has left the team wondering just what is going to happen next.

Injuries are always part of the game, but this season it has bordered on ridiculous. The Penguins are struggling with a 2-4 record as a result.

This was the season Coach Jon Heacock felt his team had reported to fall camp in the best condition they had ever been in.

Still the injuries began before the season even started. Senior tailback Kevin Smith, last year’s leading rushing, has not dressed for a game this year and probably won’t play again.

In the season opener, the Penguins lost senior defensive tackle Mychal Savage, who was an All-American and two-time all league performer, with a season-ending shoulder injury.

The next week in a dismal effort at South Dakota State, the Penguins lost two more starters on the defensive line — sophomores Luke Matelan and Torrance Nicholson. Matelan is out for the year while Nicholson may return in another two or three weeks.

Next it was senior defensive back Jarvis Richards going down with a season-ending knee injury and last week sophomore fullback Kyle Banna was lost for the rest of the season.

Last week, the Penguins also lost junior tailback Jabari Scott, along with linebackers Nate Ward, a senior, and Rashon Simons, a junior, and sophomore defensive end Nick Mernedakis. Those players should return within the next week or two, but they were badly missed Saturday in a 14-7 loss to Southern Utah.

Saturday, the Penguins suffered another key injury as junior quarterback Brandon Summers sprained his knee against Southern Utah early in the second quarter and did not return. Earlier in the game, redshirt freshman David Rach, another linebacker, suffered an ankle injury and he didn’t return either.

That doesn’t even count the number of Penguins who are banged up but still playing.

Summers’ injury to the offense is the same as Savage’s loss to the defense. Both were key players to their respective units and both are leaders on the field.

The defense, with its patched up unit, played very well against the Thunderbirds Saturday, holding them to 278 total yards and just one touchdown.

Summers didn’t seem to be in a whole lot of pain after the game but he was in a lot of discomfort on the long place ride home. His status for this Saturday’s Missouri Valley Conference game at Missouri State is doubtful.

If Summers can’t play, the Penguins will have to go with redshirt freshman Paul Corsaro

Corsaro came on against Southern Utah and struggled at first, which was expected of a youngster who had thrown just two passes in his college career prior to Saturday.

But the Indianapolis native definitely got better as the game progressed. At the end, he had the Penguins driving for the game-tying touchdown. His fourth-down pass in the end zone to junior wide receiver Donald Jones was knocked away after Jones was sandwiched between two defenders.

Corsaro doesn’t have the quickness of Summers has or his elusive running ability, but he’s a good passer and even ran eight times on Saturday.

The Penguins have no choice if they want to play in the postseason this year. With three losses already, the only way they can get to the playoffs is to win the Missouri Valley Conference.

To do that, they will have to win their six remaining games, all conference battles.

It’s certainly not impossible, a long shot definitely.

The Penguins are going to need to get some of their wounded back in action quickly and they are going to need the rest of the team to step up big time the rest of the way.

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