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YSU confident for Horizon tourney
By JON MOFFETT
YOUNGSTOWN
Photo
Youngstown State’s Jacke Healy, left, steals third base during the first inning of a Horizon League game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee on April 23 at Eastwood Field. Milwaukee’s Doug Dekoning is late with the tag. The Penguins play UIC in the Horizon League tournament on Wednesday at 4 p.m.
The road through the playoffs has the regular season in the rear-view mirror and the Youngstown State baseball team in the driver’s seat.
And coach Rich Pasquale knows his team has to put the pedal to the metal as the sixth and final seed in the Horizon League tournament. There is no time for a pit stop, and any delays mean the vacation is over.
The Penguins (21-32, 9-17 Horizon League) ended their regular season on a six-game losing streak. But Pasquale is confident the team can make some noise in the tournament, which begins Wednesday.
“The thing that I feel is important for our guys is that we are playing good baseball,” he said. “We’re taking good at-bats and we’re getting good pitching. It may be only an inning or two, but we are playing good baseball.”
The Penguins will open the first round of the tournament against UIC. The Penguins doused the Flames (22-28, 15-9) twice in three tries in the regular season. The Penguins’ high-octane offense, which features five hitters with a .300 average or better, outscored the Flames 41-30 in that series.
Pasquale admitted that a high-scoring affair between the two schools would favor the Penguins. But he added that the team is taking every game as a series of challenges.
“In one game, we are playing nine one-inning games. That’s how much we’re trying to break each game down,” he said. “Each inning is a game, and yeah, you want to win that inning. But we’re tying to put in a sense that we’re playing nine games. If you won the second inning, you won the second game.”
The approach, Pasquale said, should help with motivation. It also can’t hurt that the Penguins are 7-5 all-time as the lower seed in tournament play. Conversely, the team is 1-8 as the higher seed. The Penguins have also never lost a tournament game on a neutral site.
Pasquale hopes that mojo helps them through the double-elimination tournament.
“We’ve beaten everybody [in the conference] except for Wright State,” he said. “This conference is tough from top to bottom. Everybody has a couple of quality pitchers, and it’s really a very good hitting league ... It’s a challenge, but right now it’s season two for us. And I like our chances.”
If the Penguins beat UIC, they will face No. 1 seed Wright State. But Pasquale said his team is prepared to play anyone en route to its first conference championship since 2004. The Penguins were the lowest seed that year, too.
Pasquale said UIC is “very fundamentally sound defensively” and can hit well. Starter Aaron Swenson (7-1, 5.83 ERA) will take the mound in the opening game for YSU.
Senior Tom Clayton, who leads the team — and at one point led the nation — in batting average, like the Penguins’ chances.
“I’ve never had a championship, and I’d love to have one right here,” he said. “I think we have the ability, and coming into this week it’s going to be pretty exciting.”