Penguins roll over Horizon

Youngstown State men’s basketball team is making a run in the conference standings — they have four wins in a row, all against Horizon League opponents.

Looking at attendance figures, it seems many fans don’t care.

Saturday night, the Penguins battled a good Milwaukee team to the wire before sophomore Vytas Sulskis sank the winning basket with 1.4 seconds left on the clock.

Thursday against Wisconsin-Green Bay (the second-best team in the conference), the Penguins held a 22-point second-half lead before finally holding on for 77-73 win. Senior Zack Rebillot made two free throws in the final seconds to clinch the win.

Four wins in a row may not seem like a lot, but when you’re Youngstown State it means big things. Before this year, YSU had never won more than two straight conference games in any season since joining the league in 2001.

In fact, the last time YSU won four games in a row was in 2000-01 when the Penguins opened the season with four straight victories. Two of those came against Division II opponents Slippery Rock and Clarion.

The best winning streak in conference play came in the 1997-98 season when they posted seven straight wins in the Mid-Continent Conference.

The all-time consecutive winning streak came during the 1969-70 season under the late Dom Rosselli when the Penguins opened the season with 18 straight wins.

YSU head coach Jerry Slocum finally has his Penguins playing like he knew they were capable of playing.

“It really all started with the Cleveland State game,” Slocum said. “We lost a couple of heartbreakers to Wright State and Detroit and then went out on the road to get those two big wins in Chicago. We have been playing like a team during that stretch.

Saturday night, the Penguins got a career-high effort from junior Sirlester Martin, who had 20 points.

The transfer from Walters State Junior College and a native of Memphis, Tenn., continued to do an outstanding job on the boards and is the conference’s second-leading rebounder averaging more than seven rebounds per game.

Sulskis says he thinks the difference in the team now is that they just got tougher.

“We always felt we had a good team, but we just weren’t getting things done,” Sulskis said. “We started to defend better and just got tougher overall and that’s been the big difference.”

What is even more unbelievable is that the Penguins are playing without their top inside reserve, Dallas Blocker. He’s missed the team’s last two games and has gone home to Topeka, Kan., with an unspecified illness.

Slocum said that Blocker has had some tests last Friday and will have more today. He added that the team should know more about his illness this week.

The Penguins have a big game coming up Wednesday night when they travel to play Cleveland State in a 7 p.m. start. On Jan. 23, the Penguins knocked off the Vikings, 64-60, in a game played before more than 6,000 fans and an ESPNU television audience.

While the men are soaring, the YSU women’s team is nearing rock bottom.

They are all alone in the Horizon League cellar. Saturday, the Penguins played a horrible first half against Cleveland State before losing 65-35 in Cleveland. The Penguins scored just 10 points in the first 20 minutes against the Vikings.

I watched the first half of the game over the Internet and it wasn’t an easy game to watch.

At one time, the Vikings scored seven straight uncontested layups against the Penguins.

This week, the women return home for two games, against Detroit and Wright State. The Penguins have lost 13 straight and are just one loss from tying the school’s all-time consecutive loss streak of 14 set in 1993-94.

The Penguins also could end up with the worst record in school history if they don’t get things turned around quickly. That mark of 4-24 was set in 2003-04.

XPete Mollica write about Youngstown State University athletics. Write him at mollica@vindy.com.