Penguin Seniors at Home in the Water

Three YSU seniors led the Penguin swimming and diving team to unprecedented success in the first half of the season under Coach Matt Anderson, who took the helm of the program five years ago.

Photographed underwater in the Beeghly Natatorium on the YSU campus are senior team members, from left: Olivia Arnold, a political science major from Rutherglen, Australia; Jessica Front, a food and nutrition major from Waynesboro, Pa.; and Natasha Bray, a criminal justice major from York, Pa.

Under Anderson’s guidance, the Penguins have achieved their highest finish ever at the Horizon League Championship, won three individual conference championships and broken 20 school records, nine of them in last year’s Horizon League Championships. The swimming and diving season ends with this year’s Horizon League Championship meet, scheduled for Feb. 25-28.

Penguin Football Players Earn Awards, Set Records

Junior quarterback Brandon Summers and redshirt freshman tailback Kamryn Keys gave the YSU football team a rare sweep by capturing the Missouri Valley Football Conference's Newcomer and Freshman-of-the-Year honors, respectively.

Meanwhile, senior offensive lineman Brad Samsa of Howland was selected to the American Football Coaches Association FCS All-America team. He is the first Penguin to be named All-American since 2006 and the third to win the honor since 2001.

YSU also had five players earn Missouri Valley conference postseason honors, including Samsa who was chosen for the first team, and five Penguin players were named to the conference’s all-newcomer squad.

Samsa finished his YSU career as a two-time first-team pick and earned all-conference honors three times following a second-team pick in 2006. In 2008, Samsa started at center for the first nine contests before moving to guard for the final three. Samsa played his best in the final stretch of the season, grading at 83 percent or better in four of the final five games.

Summers, a transfer student from Toledo, threw 18 TD passes, tying for the most in a regular season in YSU history, and set a school record with a pass efficiency rating of 152.18.


Keys, the first YSU freshman to earn Freshman-of-the-Year honors, also set a team record for rushing yards by a freshman with 804 on 136 attempts.

The YSU women's golf program is coming off an impressive fall season, placing first or second in four of its five events. YSU won its own Invitational in September and ended its fall campaign with an impressive win at the Robert Morris Invitational. Leading the way for the Penguins was freshman Samantha Formeck of North Cambria, Pa., the Guins' top finisher in four of the five events. She earned medalist honors at the Bucknell Fall Invitational, the Detroit Titans Fall Invitational and at Robert Morris. Sophomore Katie Rogner of Warren won the YSU Invitational, giving the team four individual titles in the five fall events.