YSU roundup

BASEBALL

Quinlan’s gem bests top-seeded WSU

MEQUON, WIS.

YSU freshman right-hander Jeremy Quinlan held Horizon League regular-season champion Wright State to five hits in a complete game and lifted the Penguins to a 7-1 tournament victory on Thursday at Kapco Park.

YSU will play Milwaukee in the winners bracket final today at 8 p.m. YSU will be making its first winners bracket final appearance since 2005.

Quinlan (Brookfield) set new career highs for innings and strikeouts in making his first postseason appearance. He finished the game with six strikeouts after having 11 for the year and a career-long outing of four innings. The right-hander needed just 105 pitches.

The Penguins jumped on Wright State starter Joey Hoelzel (Canfield) for five runs and ended the Horizon League co-pitcher of the year’s day after three innings. The Raiders bullpen limited YSU to two runs over the final six innings, but Quinlan had all the help he needed.

Shane Willoughby singled, doubled and tripled, and Phil Lipari and Josh White had two hits apiece for YSU (14-36).

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Penguins add three to recruiting class

YOUNGSTOWN

Jorden Kaufman (Andover, Kansas), Ryan Strollo (Youngstown) and Osandai Vaughn (Charlotte, N.C.) have joined the men’s basketball program for the 2014-15 season.

Vaughn, who has three years of eligibility remaining, can play for the Penguins in the 2014-15 season while Kaufman and Strollo must sit out to fulfill NCAA transfer requirements.

Kaufman, a 7-foot junior, will have two years of eligibility remaining. He joins the Penguins after two seasons at Oral Roberts, where he scored 170 points and grabbed 87 rebounds. Kaufman appeared in 44 games during his time with the Golden Eagles and made six starts. Last season, Kaufman appeared in all 33 games with five starts and connected on 53 percent (61-of-115) of his field-goal attempts. He scored a career high 12 points against Akron on Dec. 16, 2013.

Strollo, a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard, played one season at Walsh before transferring to YSU. Last season with the Cavaliers, Strollo appeared in five games. A four-year letterwinner and starter at Ursuline High School, Strollo was named third-team all-state, averaged 17.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game as a senior and scored more than 1,000 career points. Strollo will have three years of eligibility remaining.

Vaughn spent a year at Cape Fear Community College. A 6-foot-3 sophomore guard, Vaughn averaged 19.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and two assists per game at Cape Fear last season.

TRACK AND FIELD

Nine athletes qualify for NCAA prelims

YOUNGSTOWN

YSU will send nine athletes to the NCAA preliminary round on May 29-31 in Jacksonville, Fla.

The Penguins who qualified are Bobby Grace, John Seaver, Austin McLean, Eric Rupe, Connor Neu, Jay Jakovina, Arnaldo Morales, Jessica Parham and Samantha Hamilton.

The University of North Florida will serve as the host institution at Hodges Stadium.

Grace and Seaver will compete in the shot put on Thursday, May 29 at 4 p.m., Parham will throw the javelin on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and Hamilton will run in the 10,000-meter run on Thursday at 9:40 p.m.

Neu will compete in the hammer throw on Friday, May 30 at 10 a.m. while McLean and Rupe will run in the steeplechase at 8:50 p.m. on Friday. Jakovina and Morales will compete in the high jump at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

In the steeplechase, McLean and Rupe have both qualified in the middle of the pack. McLean posted a season-best time of 8:57.59 which came at the Virginia Challenge on May 9 while Rupe had a time of 8:57.62 in the race on May 16 at the Louisville Twilight. The duo has the 27th and 28th-best times entering the meet.

The previous high for Penguins to advance to the NCAA prelims was four in 2012. The top-12 finishers from each event advance to the NCAA Championships on June 11-14 at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Staff reports