Messages

76

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: YSU Baseball

« on: May 29, 2022, 06:13:53 PM »

I doubt that we will get an on campus baseball facility any time soon. I remember reading a campus master plan that included a baseball facility in Smokey Hollow in 1975, but that sure hasn't happened. Too much cost for a facility that would still be lesser than Eastwood field and a large donor doesn't seem to be there to cover much of the cost. Unfortunately baseball is an expensive sport and could be cut if YSU gets into financial problems. Look at Cleveland State and Akron as of late; I understand Akron brought baseball back but had cut it for a few years just before that. I hope baseball stays but am concerned with our tough spring weather and the required expensive travel down south for a month or so at the beginning of the season.  Even during the season the away trips would seem to me to be extremely expensive with the number of players and the 3 games over 3 days the league is scheduling.

On another note I see that Matt Brosky had to sit out a year when he transferred from Ohio U. Yet we lost our top softball pitcher a few years ago to Illinois and she played the next year. This was before the portal and NIL etc., but don't understand how those two situations are different. I had thought that maybe only the major sports had the sit our rule, but not sure. Any thoughts?

77

YSU Penguin Athletics / YSU Baseball

« on: May 28, 2022, 06:58:12 PM »

The Horizon League tournament finished up today and Wright State beat Oakland in the championship game 24 -0! Unbelievable score. Wright State is above the rest of the league in baseball for sure. And the championship format demands many good pitchers for the 4 or more games most would need to play in the bracket. Wright State only played 3 games and won them all, getting the benefit of winning the regular season title. Oakland was 2nd. Oakland had played 3 and were in their 4th game so their pitching was thin. Oakland beat YSU twice by 2 -0 and 4 - 2. YSU beat Purdue Fort Wayne 6 - 0 and Northern Kentucky  11 - 7.  Our pitching was remarkably good in the tournament but our offense was lacking. One thing I noticed is that many of the teams had players from all over the map and we only had mostly somewhat local players. The transfer portal hurt us losing 5 players. Not sure what we got in return, but it did not measure up to our losses of talent. Need to work the portal better this coming season much like football, MBB, and WBB who did well in the portal. A new world in college sports these days. And probably our recruiting budget and overall budget is less than the other schools. All in all not a bad showing in the tournament. And Matt Brosky, our great starting pitcher, made the all-tournament team with a 3 hit complete game shutout in less than 100 pitches. He may get drafted as scouts were at the games.

78

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Fresno State

« on: March 26, 2022, 10:34:31 AM »

Recruiting at our level is difficult. The east coast is not that far away that we can't recruit there. It usually takes a coach with ties to an area to recruit it. Look at our women's basketball team. Coach Andy Crane, who has since left, came from the Minnosota area. We had a long list of players at YSU WBB from that area, a 10 hour drive away. Chelsey Olson to name just one. It will probably dry up now that he is gone. But recruitiing is key at all levels and at times a good coach hire can get you into areas that previously were not open to you.

79

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Baseball

« on: March 26, 2022, 10:29:11 AM »

The team fell apart yesterday, especially in the 2nd game. 11 stollen bases against us and 5 or so errors on a cold blustery day. Played with our backup catcher, which was a part of it, but the pitchers didn't do a good job of holding runners from getting great jumps. WV is a running team and they have that part of their game well-polished. It will give us things to work on for our future games.

The top line weekend pitching of the power 5 schools is really good and gave us experience aganst pitching a level higher than our league or mid week games of power 5 schools. Their starter in game 2 was often in the mid to high 90 mph range which is rare at our level. Good experience and hopefully we can grow from it.

80

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Garrett Coviington is in the transfer portal

« on: March 26, 2022, 10:19:02 AM »

Too bad about Garret. This entire tranfer portal along with NIL rules have really made it difficult for teams and coaches to hold on to players, especially at our level. I know that Garret was really close with Naz, visiting him often at Clemson, so that probably had something to do with it. Garret gave us so much so it is hard to be upset with him, but for college sports in general this entire situation is a game changer. Teams will need to learn to accept this system and see how to operate in it to be successful. Much like our baseball team loosing 5 players from last year, it really is hard to bring in players, coach up their skills, and then loose them to power 5 teams. I guess the recruiting of high school players will sure be different these days. The power 5 teams will get players from our level and some high school players will be left over that historically we did not get.

81

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Fresno State

« on: March 24, 2022, 03:30:17 PM »

Their bigs were too much for us and with Akuchie gone in the 2nd half we were done. Played them closer than the talent of the teams would indicate so that is good. Unfortunately costly turnovers with careless passes in the 2nd half really hurt us and were not due to a talent differnce in my opinion, just loosing focus and making some passes that were easily intercepted. But the size difference was the major problem all game with them getting many easy baskets and causing us difficulty on offense.

Dwayne Cohill is the real deal; sure hope he stays.  Will Dunn can be significant with improvement and Mays can be a contributor. Not sure about the rest of our returning team and how much they can grow as players over the off season. Who stays and who goes and who comes in to supplement our group will be key for next year. It can happen as you look around basketball.  Look at the improvement of Cleveland State in a short time and look at St Peters in the NCAA; not much more of a recruiting environment than we have in my opinion. Maybe I am too optomistic but I sure hope we can do it.

82

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Ladies Fall 68-59 to Kent State in Opening Round of Women's NIT

« on: March 18, 2022, 09:34:20 AM »

Loosing Chelsey was a big disappointment and really hurt our team's chances against Kent. Her loyalty and committment to YSU womens basketball is outstanding and is very rare these days. She is from Minnasota and her family often if not always makes the nearly 10 hour drive to come to the games. And many of the other players from last year left and she could have also for a school closer to home. I feel bad for the way her time with us came to an end with the injury that I hope is only minor.  I wish her the best to her in her future, an outstanding player and an even better person.

From a team standpoint she seems to be our only player that can drive to the basket, pull up, and make short range jump shots. With her out of the lineup, our other outside players pass the ball around hoping for an open 3 or try to drive to the basket to get layups. We have no mid range game. The other part of our game is Lilly inside which is also short range also. And the other teams double or triple team her when she gets the ball and don't get hurt by our other players. So other teams have us figured out. Defend the 3 and close to the basket and forget the rest of the floor. We need our players to develope that part of their game or get some new players that can do that for us to get to the next level. Naturally size is important and in most of our losses the other team was bigger than us on average. Kent sure had a size advantage on us and so did IUPUI. I understand that size is difficult to get at our level, but hopefully we can improve in that area.

83

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: YSU vs Morgan State

« on: March 17, 2022, 02:48:50 PM »

I have heard a rummer that Covington want to return and has another year.  Also forgot about Shemar. He could be good for us next year also.

84

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: YSU vs Morgan State

« on: March 17, 2022, 12:42:17 PM »

Disappointing performance in the 2nd half for all except Dwayne Cohill.  Without him we are doomed. He plays well under pressure and want the ball in crunch time. Sure hope he stays and we get help in the portal. Tevin Olison is good also, but gone after this year along with Michael Akuchie. Beyond those guys for next year we have Dunn and Hunter who both need to improve to make us a team that can compete with the top teams in the league. The others are all question marks in my mind. At the end of the game yesterday no one stepped forward to make outstanding winning plays except Dwayne Cohill. He is step above our other players except maybe Tevin a bit.

85

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: RMU

« on: March 02, 2022, 12:37:54 PM »

Up until the last 3 games I had hope. It has been lost at this point. Last nights game was really poor as it seemed the effort was not there to keep up with RMU on loose balls and especially the inside game on both O and D. We need inside players who can not be intimidated,  can rebound and score. I thought we had that earlier in the season, but it has been lost as of late. As for next year who knows what the portal can bring. Two of our best players, Dwayne Cohill and Tevin Olison, came via the portal.  We need more and hope that Dwayne returns next year. Shemar and Miles seem good to me, but the other returners need to step up their game to be contributors next year.  And who knows who will return with the portal etc. I guess we had a good year comparded to our past, but these last few games really hurt. We need some additions for sure.

86

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: YSU - NKU MBB

« on: February 27, 2022, 09:16:12 AM »

We have sure taken steps backward in our performance. The teams with bigger inside players really give us trouble since Michael and Will are thinner and the bigger stronger inside guys have their way with us with easy inside baskets. And on the other end they make it difficult for us to score inside.  Jamir could help in those situations. Other team's offense looks easy and our almost impossible. We need our inside guys to get tougher to give us a chance in those games.

As for the others we don't have subs that can come in and contribute signicantly except for Miles.  Chris Shelton is a mystery to me. His defense must not be up to the coaches expectations because he seems to have the biggest upside of the other subs except for Miles. Daniel needs to get his shot improved for next season to have any help for us on offense. And Luke's size will always be a negative so the rest of his game needs to be top notch to have a positive impact. His shooting, especially since his hand injury, has been down.

Hopefully we can get a new player or two for next season to get to the level of the top teams in the league.  As for the upcoming tournament, I think we are facing an uphill battle.

87

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Ladies vs IUPUI

« on: February 25, 2022, 10:11:35 AM »

Tough game for sure. Bad start with missed shots and turnovers probably due to them being good and us being a bit on edge for the big game in a hostile environment. They were bigger than we were, especially inside and made it difficult for Lilly to do her normal inside game. They had one big girl on her all the time and a 2nd came in when she got the ball. She was surrounded and couldn't shoot or pass the ball out effectively and got in foul trouble early. On the outside they covered our shooters really close and our shots were contested much of the time. And when we did get a decent shot it was rushed and thus a low shooting percentage. And the turnovers really hurt.  Probably our players were too high for the game and the nerves got the best of us early. Our standard offense just didn't work and being behind so much in the 1st quarter, only 3 points in the 1st quarter pretty much doomed us. IUPUI is very good, but we need a new approach to try to compete with them which could easily happen in the tournament. We have an inside and outside game. May need to get to a mid-range game driving to the basket to help take some of the heat off. They had our number on all our typical offensive moves which they shut down.

88

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: D'Alesio Named Chiefs Safeties Coach

« on: February 23, 2022, 01:24:15 PM »

One thing fans need to realize is that just because you are a great player does not mean you will be a great coach. And vise versa. Glad for the young man doing well for himself. But I too remember the interception that was in his hands and dropped that may have cost Coach Wilford his job. Time to move on and wish him well. He spent considerable time with us as a player and coach and must have had something going for himself as a coach. We have sent a number of coaches to higher level jobs so we must have something good here, contrary to what many may feel or say.

89

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Ladies Beat Wright State 77-53 for Fifth Straight Win

« on: February 21, 2022, 10:00:09 PM »

Green Bay just lost to Milwaukee 50-48 giving them 4 losses. We are the only team with 3 losses. If we win 2 this weekend we are league Champs and the top sead in the tournament. If we win 1 this weekend I think we would be the 2 seed in the tournament at worst.

90

YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: YSU vs UIC

« on: February 18, 2022, 09:42:10 AM »

Dwayne Cohill is really good and takes us over the top in these games. Pressure doesn't get to him and he wants to be in those end of game situations to win the game, much like DQ did in the past. And Michael Akuchie is really playing well, with others contributing. Down 11 in the 2nd half and I thought we were finished. Thought Will Dunn would be better, but he is contributing and hopefully gets more aggressive on the boards and plays good defense and gets some shots to go. But Miles Hunter is really scoring well from mid-range, 5 for 5 yesterday. Hard to take him out for Will Dunn. Hope we can continue on Saturday.