Young softball team getting ready for opener

By Pete Mollica

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown State softball team is preparing for its season opener Feb. 21, and the Penguins will be sporting a lot of new looks, new faces and a new coaching staff.

Brian Campbell takes over the head coaching duties after spending the last eight seasons as head coach at Tiffin University (Division II). Campbell replaces Christy Cameron, whose contract was not renewed after last season.

The Penguins will be a very young team in 2009. There will be only two seniors on the roster along with six freshmen, many of whom will be breaking into the starting lineup.

“This will be a very young team, and it helps that we had a great fall session where all of the players did an outstanding job of learning the new system that we are putting in here,” Campbell said.

Campbell has a pretty good idea who his starters will be heading into the opener, which will be a doubleheader at George Mason in Fairfax, Va., on Feb. 21.

“We’ll probably have a starting lineup that will include just one senior, one junior, two sophomores and the rest freshmen,” Campbell said. “Our pitching staff right now will include two juniors and a freshman.”

The Penguins have just 15 players on the roster, and Campbell would like to carry 20 by next season.

“We already have commitments from five players for next season, and we only lose two seniors, so that doesn’t leave too many open spots on the roster,” he said.

Campbell has high expectations for his team, but with all the young players, he’s anxious to see just how they adapt to the college game.

“College softball is a lot faster game than what most of these young ladies are used to in high school,” Campbell said. “We competed very well in the fall, and now we’ll just have to see how quickly they adapt to things on the next level.”

In the fall, Campbell made a lot of position switches with his players, and that also will affect just how quickly the team develops.

The Penguins lost their top six hitters from a year ago. Junior Autumn Grove, who batted .250, is the top returnee. Grove, who played second base and shortstop her first two seasons, has been moved to the outfield this year.

Senior returnee Allyse Ledford, who played the outfield last year, will be moved to third base.

Of the freshmen coming in, Campbell has been high on Jordan Ingalls from Bolivan, N.Y. In four high school seasons, Ingalls compiled a 97-7 pitching record with 1,096 strikeouts and an earned run average of 0.73, while batting .384 with four home runs as a senior.

When she doesn’t pitch, she’ll play right field.

Campbell said that it’s hard to predict just how his Penguins will do in the Horizon League. A year ago, the team finished 12-37 overall and 6-16 in the conference and lost two straight in the conference tournament.

“Again with a young team, it’s very hard to predict just how they will handle things,” Campbell said. “I’ve had young teams at Tiffin that I thought was going to be so-so, and they turned around and shocked me with their play.”

He has two new assistant coaches on the staff in former YSU standout Tiffany Patteson and former Boardman High and Bowling Green All-American Gina Rango. Gary Williams begins his sixth season as the team’s director of operations.

“Tiffany coached with me last year at Tiffin, and she knows the Horizon League and the area, while Gina was just such an outstanding player in both high school and college and she also knows the area well,” Campbell said. “They both add so much to this program.”

Campbell also brings a lot of success with him. In eight years at Tiffin, his teams posted a 285-139-1 record, and he averaged 36 wins per season and four conference championships.

The Penguins will play two straight doubleheaders to open the year at George Mason and then will head to Florida where they will play 12 games in six days in Orlando.

They will open the home portion of their schedule March 21 in a Horizon League contest against Loyola at McCune Park in Canfield.

mollica@vindy.com