Spring teams are home

Basketball season, at least for the fans, has come to an end at Youngstown State University. It was a long disappointing season, but hopefully one that will lead to a bigger and better future.

Now it’s on to other things and it appears that we won’t have to wait very long thanks to Mother Nature.

The YSU baseball team will open the home portion of its schedule Tuesday afternoon, St. Patrick’s Day, and let’s hope that a little luck of the Irish is with the Penguins when they play host to Pittsburgh at 3 p.m. at Eastwood Field.

The YSU softball team will be making its home debut Saturday when it begins Horizon League play with a doubleheader against Loyola at McCune Park in Canfield. The games are 1 and 3 p.m.

If that’s not enough to get excited about, then how about this: three weeks from today will be the opening session of spring football practice.

Baseball coach Rich Pasquale will have his young team ready for the home opener Tuesday and then will follow that game with a visit to Akron on Wednesday for another 3 p.m. contest.

The Penguins were 2-10 going into Sunday’s doubleheader at Marshall. Both of their victories came against VMI in back-to-back games.

Senior outfielder John Koehnlein is leading the Penguins in hitting with a .457 average. Koehnlein, who was the leading hitter in the Horizon League as a freshman, has struggled somewhat after struggling with injuries last season, but appears to be returning to form. Of his 16 hits on the season, 15 have been for singles.

Transfer Jacke Healey, a junior from Tunkhannock, Pa., who came to the Penguins from Potomac State Junior College, has also been one of the leaders thus far in the season.

Healey, who has taken over at shortstop, is second behind Koehnlein in batting with a .386 average and has hit two home runs and drove in 14 runs, both team highs.

The Penguins haven’t had a lot of good pitching performances, although junior transfer Trent Woods from Marshalltown (Wis.) Community College has both victories in relief.

Junior Aaron Swenson, last year’s Horizon League pitcher of the year, has appeared in five games (starting four) and is 0-2 with one complete game with 25 innings pitched. He leads the YSU pitchers with 17 strikeouts.

Swenson will more than likely pitch Tuesday against Pitt.

The softball team, under first-year coach Brian Campbell, finished its spring trip with a 2-14 record, although the Penguins did end on a winning note, defeating LaSalle 5-4 in eight innings on Friday.

The Penguins are a very young team and coming out of the spring trip one of the most promising performers was freshman Jordan Ingalls from Bolivar, N.Y.

Ingalls leads the Penguins in batting with a .358 average, the only player over .300. She also has a home run.

Ingalls has made seven mound starts on the season with a 1-6 record and a 5.81 earned run average. Junior Cheryl Cale is also 1-6 in seven starts with a 2.50 ERA. Ingalls and Cale have combined to pitch 97 of the team’s 103 total innings this spring.

While the spring action will be slight the rest of this month, once April begins it will be in full swing. The YSU sports calendar shows the Penguins will be in action in baseball, softball or spring football at home on 21 of the 30 days in April, and on most days it will be more than one team in action and on several occasions all three.

Fans will be able to see a lot more of the action since the football team will hold all its practices in the morning hours, leaving softball and baseball for the afternoons and evenings.

The only football at night will be the Red and White spring game on April 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Stambaugh Stadium.

XPete Mollica covers YSU sports for The Vindicator. E-mail him at mollica@vindy.com.