March 25, 2008

Penguins Set to Tangle With IUP in Home Opener Today at Cene

    Youngstown -- More than a month after the season's first pitch, the Youngstown State baseball team will finally play its home opener today against IUP. First pitch between the Penguins and Crimson Hawks is set for 2 p.m. at Cene Park in Struthers.
    Senior right-hander Adam Kalafos will start on the mound for YSU in the first midweek start of the year. In his three other starts, Kalafos has gone 0-2 with a 5.79 ERA. In his first start at Georgia Tech he allowed just one unearned run on four hits and four walks while striking out five.
    The Penguins are coming off of a somewhat disappointing weekend series in which they lost two out of three games against Butler in their first Horizon League series. YSU led 4-2 in the seventh inning in Friday's opener but fell 5-4, and it struggled at the plate in a 4-1 loss in the first game of Saturday's doubleheader. David Leon and Sean Lucas had back-to-back RBI hits in the eighth inning of game two to rally the Penguins to a 2-1 victory.
    Sophomore outfielder C.J. Morris leads YSU at the plate with a .370 average and six runs scored. Sophomore catcher Anthony Porter is batting .302 with four RBIs, and Sean Lucas is batting .300 with a team-leading six doubles and eight RBIs.
    The Penguins have won their last two home openers against Malone in 2007 and West Liberty in 2006. Their last loss was to Central Michigan on March 26, 2005.

Scouting IUP
    The Penguins will have their hands full with Division II IUP of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. The Crimson Hawks have a current record of 16-4 and have won six straight contests in the past 11 days. They are hitting .353 as a team and average 9.55 runs per game for the season, and they have averaged 13.67 runs in their past six contests.
    Seven players who have started at least 14 games are hitting above .300, and three are hitting above .460. Paul Bingham is batting a team-high .519 while Shawn Schwarz is batting .480 with a team-high 10 doubles and 24 RBIs.
    YSU leads the all-time series 4-2, but the teams have not played since 1991. The home team has won all six games.

Swenson Named Horizon League Pitcher of the Week
    Sophomore Aaron Swenson was named the Horizon League Pitcher of the Week for his complete game victory against Butler on March 22.
    Swenson, a right-hander from Twinsburg, Ohio, held the Bulldogs to one run on eight hits in the series finale to earn his first victory of the season. He also struck out four and did not issue a walk in what was his first career complete game.
    Swenson allowed a run on three hits in the first inning, but he settled down and allowed only two runners to reach scoring position the rest of the game. He also induced four double plays, including one to end the game with the tying run on first base.
    Through four starts, Swenson has struck out 16 batters and has not issued a walk through 26.2 innings. He has allowed two runs or fewer in three of his starts and has pitched into at least the seventh inning three times.

More Hits Doesn’t Mean More Runs

    Friday’s game against Butler marked the fifth-straight game the Penguins outhit their opponent. However, they were only able to win two out of those five contests. They turned the tables in Saturday’s second game by defeated the Bulldogs 2-1 despite being outhit 8-5. For the year, the Penguins have outhit their competition in eight of their 15 games but have scratched just three wins in those eight.

Koehnlein Makes Return
    Junior John Koehnlein made his return to the lineup this weekend in Indianapolis after missing almost a month with a broken bone in his hand. He went 2-for-4 and scored a run on Friday in his first game back but was held without a hit in Saturday’s opener. Having taken his first swings since the injury on Thursday, Koehnlein was still rusty. On Saturday he struck out in his only two at bats, which was the first time he went down on strikes twice in a game since May 13, 2006.

Veterans Having Slow Start at Plate
    The Penguins’ struggles at the plate can be attributed to early season slumps from its veterans. Compared to the 2007 final numbers, sophomore Anthony Munoz is 40 points below his freshman year average, senior Josh Page is batting 87 points below, sophomore Eric Marzec is 106 points under, sophomore Tom Clayton is 119 points under, senior Mike Turjanica is 148 points under and junior John Koehnlein is 267 points below. On the flip side, Sean Lucas is 26 points above his 2007 average, Cory Hornyak is 58 points higher and C.J. Morris is batting 317 points better than his freshman year.

Late Inning Struggles
    The Penguins held a 4-2 lead against the Bulldogs after the top of the seventh inning on Friday but allowed a run in each of the next three innings to lose 5-4. For the year the Penguins are being outscored 33-11 in the seventh and eighth innings – 13-3 in the seventh and 20-8 in the eighth. The bulk of those runs have come in four games, however. In the seventh, Alabama’s eight-run flurry on March 7 accounts for eight of the 13 runs against the Penguins. In the eighth inning, Georgia Tech scored seven runs in the series opener and four more on Feb. 24, and Xavier scored six runs in the eighth on March 16.