Pitching a problem at YSU

The Youngstown State baseball and softball teams have a lot in common this season. Unfortunately a lot of those common traits are not good.

Both teams are struggling with their pitching staffs and it’s not that both teams don’t have their share of good pitchers. The problem is that they are just not getting the job done.

The baseball team (4-15, 1-2 Horizon League) is probably struggling the most on the mound. If the Penguins get some good starting pitching, the bullpen lets them down and when the relievers are doing well the starters are struggling.

Junior Aaron Swenson, who a year ago was named the Horizon League pitcher of the year, is still the ace of the YSU staff and last Friday pitched an outstanding game as the Penguins opened Horizon play with a 7-4 victory over Wright State.

Swenson threw all nine innings, allowing 11 hits, striking out seven and not walking a batter to improve his record to 1-2. But the rest of the staff has compiled an 8.83 earned run average with over 90 bases on balls and 18 hit batsmen thus far in the season.

“We’ve got about four or five pitchers who are doing their job, the rest aren’t,” said YSU coach Rich Pasquale.

Hitting has really not been a problem and the Penguins have been playing pretty solid defense.

The Penguins have had some problems scoring runs early in the contests, falling behind and then making a comeback only to fall short of pulling out the win.

The Penguins are a very young team with only one senior on the roster, but that one is the team’s leading hitter in John Koehnlein, who seems to have regained the form that he had as a freshman and sophomore. Koehnlein was a second-team All-Horizon pick and an All-Newcomer selection as a freshman and then as a sophomore was fourth in the country in hitting with a .434 average and was a first-team all-league selection. Last year he was hobbled by injuries and batted just .288.

Pasquale brought in several new players this season who have helped both the offense and defense, including junior transfer Jacke Healey at shortstop and junior catcher Casey Holland, along with junior pitcher Trent Wood and several outstanding freshmen.

Holdovers like junior Eric Marzec, sophomore Joe Iacobucci, junior C.J. Morris and junior Anthony Porter are all playing very well this season and once Pasquale and pitching coach Tom Lipari get the mound staff in order look for the wins to start coming.

First-year coach Brian Campbell has a similar situation with the softball team. The Penguins (3-16, 1-2 Horizon) are very young, just two seniors. With only 16 players on the roster, depth has been a problem.

The team’s top two starting pitchers, junior Cheryl Cale and freshman Jordan Ingalls, have pitched well at times, but just not consistently, although Cale tossed a gem Sunday in a 1-0 win over Loyola.

Junior Danielle Chase, who was being counted on to be in the pitching mix, has been sidelined with injuries and has appeared in just one game this season.

Ingalls has been a rare find and the freshman has stepped right in to lead the team in hitting as well as sharing the pitching load. She plays right field when she doesn’t pitch.

Campbell’s starting lineup consists of four freshmen, three sophomores, a junior and a senior.

In most cases they are young, but after 18 games they can hardly be considered inexperienced.

The team lacks power, although you wouldn’t think so after Saturday’s second game of the doubleheader with Loyola when sophomore Kim Klonowski powered a pair of home runs, finished with four hits and drove in four runs. But the Penguins still dropped a 6-5 decision in eight innings.

Klonowski tied a pair of YSU records in the game (hitting two homers in the same game and getting four hits). Both had been previously set several times.

There may be some growing pains this year, but the future looks very bright for both the YSU teams and both could be making some noise in conference play this season.

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