YSU track program adds to already-talented roster

January 14, 2019 at 12:05a.m.

Penguins already had

considerable talent

and added even more

YOUNGSTOWN

Can’t blame Brian Gorby if he wants to take a victory lap.

The Youngstown State track coach has had plenty of good years in a 25-year career, but he’s calling 2018 a year that really stood out.

The men’s and women’s track teams swept the Horizon League for indoor and outdoor titles.

Six athletes went to the NCAA outdoor preliminaries, with Warren JFK grad Chad Zallow advancing all the way to the NCAA Championships in the 110 hurdles to close out the 2017-18 academic year.

The next fall, the men’s cross country team won the League title.

All of that is great in any year, but the work that puts 2018 over the rest came off the field. He signed what he calls his best recruiting class at YSU, doing so while having to replace two assistant coaches.

“It’s No. 1. If you were to rate this by one person, I would say [Zallow] would be the best, but when you look at quality and depth across the board and the number of state champions, we’re looking at 8-10 state champions.

“To have this many, I feel like we’ve addressed every need we have.”

Track and field doesn’t have the recruiting grading apparatus that college football and basketball has using a 5-star rating system, so the metric Gorby uses is state titles and times/distance. Four of his 15 incoming freshman already have state titles, which include locals like Crestview shot put thrower Dominic Perry and Valley Christian sprinter Jamynk Jackson.

Others were either state runner-ups or athletes who placed high and are now projected to win their respective state championships. Somebody who fits in that category is East sprinter Jahniya Bowers, who took fifth this past spring in the 100, but currently considered to be the best in Ohio in that event. It’s those kind of projections that have Gorby picturing his latest recruiting class arriving in Youngstown with additional medals after already getting their signature.

Gorby is quick to credit his coaching staff for his current signing class and that group underwent some shuffling. Former throws coach Katrina Brumfield left to take the head coaching job with Oakland’s track team and throws coach Connor Neu left the team. He replaced those two by staying inside Ohio. Canfield native Tyler Mettille came over from Kent State to replace Brumfield and Ashland graduate Megan Tomei is starting her collegiate coaching career after finishing her throwing career this past spring.

“We brought these folks in in September and we hit the ground running. Basically, we were blessed with the success of the program,” Gorby said. “We’ve had coaches come and go over the past four or five years and here, we didn’t miss a beat.”

And it also looks like the Penguins won’t be missing a beat on the track. Winning titles and getting the best recruits make for a nice cycle.

“We’re trying to recruit at a higher level and we don’t always get them every time, but we got a lot of them this time and that tells me the program is being recognized not just in the Horizon League, but outside the league because we’re going up against some big schools,” Gorby said.