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YSU soccer strikes lucky 7
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Jackie Podolsky of Canfield has gone from walk-on to goalkeeper for the YSU women’s soccer team. She made five saves during the Penguins’ record-breaking seventh win.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Surprised? No, Will Lemke is not surprised.
When he was hired as Youngstown State’s soccer coach 31/2 years ago, he saw hope in a hopeless program.
He’d just come from Viterbo University, a NAIA school in Wisconsin that had won 24 games in the six years before he was hired. In his second year, the V-Hawks won 12, starting a streak of seven straight winning seasons.
So when the Penguins won their seventh game last Wednesday, breaking the school record for wins with four games to play, the only thing that surprised him was it took this long.
“We’re probably a year, year-and-a-half behind where we would have liked to have been,” Lemke said. “I think the staff had to learn and grow just like the players.
“But I felt pretty strongly we were going to turn this thing around.”
Lemke won four games his first season, 2009, then won three games each of the next two seasons. Sixteen of his losses were by one goal, including six during last year’s 3-10-4 season.
“Last year we started putting together the team we wanted,” Lemke said. “The girls were starting to get it, we had a little more depth and we were getting the kind of players in here that we knew we wanted and fit our system.
“We were pushing teams around and out-playing them and out-shooting them and doing everything better but not finishing the deal.”
The turning point came in this year’s conference opener on Sept. 29 against Milwaukee, a team that had never lost to the Penguins and had beaten them 3-0 the year before.
Sophomore Chelsey Haney scored an early goal, then sophomore Jade Flory added another one midway through the second half to give YSU a 2-0 lead and the Penguins held on for a 2-1 victory.
“We literally went crazy when we beat Milwaukee,” said Flory, who is second on the team in points (10) behind Haney (12). “It’s so nice to be part of breaking all these records and beating teams that have never been beat by YSU.
“Beating Milwaukee was literally the best experience we could have experienced.”
After falling to Green Bay in overtime on Oct. 6, the Penguins beat Cleveland State to best the team record for wins set in 1997 and 1999.
Jackie Podolsky, a walk-on from Canfield, made five saves in the second half to earn her third win in four starts.
“It’s been a wild ride,” said Podolsky, a freshman who transferred from Mount Union and whose brother, Mike, plays for YSU’s basketball team. “I came in not expecting to play, ever, and now I’m starting and we’ve made history.
“It’s amazing.”
Flory, a Chambersberg, Pa., native who chose YSU over two Carolina schools, said she knew the program was headed for success when she saw the talent Lemke was bringing in. The Penguins just needed time and belief.
“Last year, it seemed like if we got down a goal, we fell apart,” she said. “This year we all want the game. Every game, every moment, every second, everybody’s fighting.
“There’s no negative attitudes like there’s been in the past. There’s no cliques. Everybody has everyone else’s back and we’re all here for the same reason.”
Best of all, the future looks even brighter. The team recently got a new locker room, the WATTS allows it to avoid practicing in the gym or at 7 p.m. at night and there’s a new stadium (with regulation width and no crown on the field, unlike Stambaugh) being built.
“Were really happy we finally broke through,” Lemke said. “Now we’ve got some momentum and a lot of youthful, positive energy. We’ve just got to keep it going.”