Penguins have lot to overcome

Youngstown State’s 31-28 last-second defeat to Liberty on Saturday put the Penguins in a precarious position with the season not even halfway completed.

With three losses, two against Football Championship Subdivision opponents, the Penguins can’t afford another loss.

And with one already in the Missouri Valley Football Conference standings, they cannot afford another conference loss if they want to get the automatic bid into the playoffs.

In all reality the Penguins have to win the conference if they want to make the playoffs, or finish no lower than second with a maximum of four season losses.

A 9-3 record would likely get the Penguins to the playoffs, but with the team’s injury situation, that’s going to take a super-human effort on the part of a lot of young players.

The defensive unit of the Penguins has been riddled with injuries, including four starters who are pretty much done for the season and several others playing with some injury.

For the Penguins to make any kind of run at the playoffs the defense needs to play a whole lot better.

In the last two games — one of those a win — YSU has allowed 928 total yards. But the defense has forced 11 turnovers in five games, including seven interceptions. Obviously turnovers aren’t enough, the defense has got to stop somebody and quickly.

To date the only team the Penguins have held under 400 total yards was Central State.

YSU coach Jon Heacock is concerned, especially after a very poor tackling performance Saturday against Liberty where the Penguins had their hands on the ball carriers so many times only to let them get away for good yardage.

Tackling Liberty back was no easy chore

“Our tackling was very poor,” said Heacock after the game. “But give Liberty credit, they have a great back, who is big and strong and being looked at seriously by the NFL and he was very difficult to bring down.”

Well, teams coming up like Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Illinois State and Western Illinois are all going to have big, strong running backs and if the Penguins can’t tackle them then don’t worry about the postseason and it might just be trying to hand on to get a winning record.

This week the Penguins will make the long trek out to Southern Utah to meet the Thunderbirds (2-3), who are coming off a 34-20 victory over Texas State Saturday.

They will remain on the road the following week with a game at Missouri State before returning home Oct. 18 to face Southern Illinois, followed by Northern Iowa.

On Oct. 25 Youngstown State will hold its annual homecoming game against Northern Iowa at 4 p.m. At the same time the university will also present its athletics hall of fame class, both at a pre-game luncheon and at halftime of the contest.

This year’s class is a special one since it will include four former women’s basketball players — all from the school’s famed “Fab Five” of the 1998 graduating class.

Beach, Cook, Martin, McCombs are picks

Shannon Beach, Colleen Cook, Ann Marie Martin and Caroline McCombs will all be inducted this year. Playing under the direction of veteran coach Ed DiGregorio, those four led the Penguins to two trips to the NCAA Tournament, four 20-win seasons and two conference championships.

Those four will be joined by Walter Brian (1949-52), men’s basketball; Kim Givens (1993-96), softball; Amy Herman (1994-98), volleyball, and Jeff Sofko (1984-87), baseball.

Fans can make reservations to attend the buffet brunch from 10:45-11:30 a.m. at Kilcawley Center by calling the Penguin Club office at (330) 941-2733.

While on the subject of basketball, the YSU men’s and women’s teams will hold their annual Tip-Off Dinner on Oct. 26. Sponsored by the Penguin Club, event will begin at 5 p.m. in the main area at Beeghly Center.

YSU men’s coach Jerry Slocum and first-year women’s coach Cindy Martin will attend with their players to discuss the upcoming season.

Contact the Penguin Club for reservations.

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