Penguins seniors prepare for final game at Ice Castle

YSU’s hopes for a longer season have been dashed by a three-game losing streak.

By PETE MOLLICA

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

YOUNGSTOWN — Saturday afternoon, Youngstown State University will play its final home game of the 2009 football season.

For the Penguins’ 12 senior players, it will be the final time that they will take the field at Stambaugh Stadium.

The Penguins (4-5, 2-4 Missouri Valley Football Conference) will play host to Illinois State (5-4, 4-2) in a 1 p.m. kickoff.

The Penguins are struggling through a disappointing season. They’ve lost three straight games, all of them against the top teams in the conference.

The Penguins are also a disappointing 2-2 at home and both losses have come in conference games.

If YSU senior guard Brian Mellott could describe this entire season into one word, it would be “frustrating.”

“Offensively we’ve heard it time and time again, ‘what’s the problem,’ ” he said Monday. “There are times we’ve played poorly, but we weren’t in bad positions, we just didn’t get the job done.

“We’re seniors and it’s the end of the season and we have just have two more games left to play,” Mellott said. “We want to have some fun these last two games, but we also want to win.”

Mellott said that offensively he and the rest of the offensive line feel as though they’ve let down the offense.

“It all begins with us and if we’re not getting the job done than things aren’t going to work,” he said.

Mellott also said that the Penguins’ problems aren’t the fault of the coaching staff.

“He can’t go out and play the games for us,” Mellott said of head coach Jon Heacock. “They prepare us for what needs to be done and it’s up to us to go out and do it.”

Mellott, who originally signed with Ohio University right out of Austintown Fitch High School, transferred to Youngstown the following season and has been a major part of the program.

“I’m so thankful that I came back,” Mellott said.

“This team has stayed together this year,” he added. “Nobody’s left the team and now we are going to go out and have the two best weeks that we can possibly have.”

“We know that some of the fans aren’t happy about the way things have gone this year and hopefully these last two weeks we can give them something to be proud of us for here at the end,” he said.

We just have to go out and give it everything we have from here on out.”

The Penguins have struggled offensively the past three weeks, scoring just two touchdowns in the three losses to Southern Illinois (27-8), South Dakota State (17-3) and at Northern Iowa (28-7).

The Penguins have won just two games in the last 19 meetings against those three opponents including an 0-9 mark against Northern Iowa. They are 1-6 against Southern Illinois and 1-2 against South Dakota State.

“Back when spring ball ended, to have a season like we are having was the furthest thing in our minds,” Mellott said. “We all had very high expectations, but it just never happened.”

The other seniors playing their final home game Saturday are tailback Kevin Smith, quarterback Brandon Summers, linebacker Draye Ersery, tailback Dana Brown, cornerback Lenny Wicks, tailback Jabari Scott, punter Ben Nowicki, wide receivers Donald Jones and Aaron Pitts, along with defensive tackles Crispin Fernandez and Mychal Savage.

mollica@vindy.com