Former Penguins return for visit

Saturday afternoon at Beeghly Center there were some great Youngstown State women’s basketball players on the floor.

Unfortunately for the Penguins none of them were in uniform.

YSU welcomed back former players from 1986 to 2008 at its annual Alumni Day during halftime of the game against Cleveland State.

First-year YSU coach Cindy Martin would love to have had a few of those alumni out on the floor for her this season.

Martin said after the game how appreciative the Penguins were to have those former standouts return to be honored by their school.

There were nine former Penguins in attendance along with Ed DiGregorio who spent 20 seasons as the Penguins coach.

Probably the most impressive of the nine players was Dorothy Bowers Collins, who played for the Penguins from 1984-88 and still holds many YSU records, including most points in a career (2,324), season (783) and game (49). She also served as an assistant to DiGregorio during his final two seasons as coach.

Another impressive returnee was Ann Marie Martin, who played from 1994-98 and was a standout on YSU’s first team to appear in the NCAA tournament. She is also the school’s No. 4 all-time leading scorer with 1,631 points.

The rest of those attending were Louise Cooper (1977-81), Margaret Somple Hotz (1986-91), Donna Wertz (1988-92), Carol Nee Bronka (1986-88), Lisa Rotunno Modelski (1995-99), Jennifer Perugini Flores (2001-05) and Aliyah Sabree 2002-06.

The current YSU team did little to impress the alumni on Saturday and it left many wondering if this team will win again this season.

Even Detroit, which last year I felt was the worst team in the Horizon League, has five wins this season, including one in the conference. The Penguins play at Detroit Saturday and then will meet Loyola, a team that also hasn’t won in conference play yet this year, the following week at home.

I said back in November that unless the women were able to improve on the offensive end of the floor that they were going to have trouble winning games.

Well, the offense hasn’t improved at all — as noted by the Penguins’ 23 percent shooting in the first half against the Vikings.

Senior Nikita LaFleur is playing the best basketball of her career at YSU, but unfortunately she is getting no support at all. Senior Tiara Scott came into the season as the top returning scorer, but has been very inconsistent all year long. Other than senior Kelsey Gurganus, nobody else has stepped up to take the lead for this team and the Penguins’ bench has been almost nonexistent.

Enough of the women’s problems. Now on to the men’s.

The Penguins are facing a big game on Friday night against Horizon League opponent Cleveland State at Beeghly Center in a game that will be televised nationally over ESPNU at 9 p.m.

Now the Penguins are struggling along at 5-12 on the year, including 2-6 in the Horizon League.

The Penguins, mainly because of their record, haven’t been averaging more than 1,500 fans (in the seats) this season and really that would be pretty embarrassing to both the university and the Horizon League if that’s all that shows up for Friday’s game with the Vikings.

There has been a lot of talk going around about making Friday night a “white out” game by the fans. Everybody wears white and hopefully there will be enough bodies in the seats to make it look pretty good on ESPN.

One thing that you can be sure of is that the YSU men’s team is going to put on a good show for the fans. They’re going to give the Vikings all they can handle and it certainly wouldn’t hurt their chances if there are four or five thousand fans in the seats rooting them on.

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