YSU Women’s Basketball Fall Signees Update

[IAA Fan]

The Youngstown State women's basketball team's five fall signees entered their senior years with an already impressive list of collective accolades that ranked the class among the top 25 percent in the country. The future Penguins had remarkable senior campaigns with four of the five being named First-Team All-Ohio and the fifth earning third-team honors. Below is a summary of their individual accomplishments since signing National Letters of Intent in November 2014.

Bre Berryman (6-foot-5, center, Indian Creek High School)
First-Team All-Ohio at Division II for the second time in her career… Eastern District Player of the Year, First-Team All-OVAC and First-Team Buckeye 8 honors for the fourth straight year… Averaged 22.2 points and 13.8 rebounds… Nominated for the Ohio Associated Press Ms. Basketball award… Named MVP of the East team with 24 points, 10 rebounds and seven blocks in the District V All-Star game… Had eight points in the West Virginia-Ohio All-Star game… For the year, posted 532 points, 304 rebounds and 144 blocks… Finished her career with 1,827 points, 1,167 rebounds and 489 blocks… One of 11 girls in Ohio who was nominated for the McDonald's All-American girls basketball team.

Jill Blacksten (6-foot-2, wing, Newark Catholic High School)
First-Team All-Ohio at Division IV for the third straight year and district player of the year for the second consecutive year… Columbus Dispatch All-Metro team… Led Newark Catholic to a regional final as a senior and four straight league and district titles… Averaged 19.1 points and 10.7 rebounds while shooting 57 percent from the field and 86 percent from the free-throw line… Finished her career with more than 1,700 career points… One of 11 girls in Ohio who was nominated for the McDonald's All-American girls basketball team.

Marissa Brown (6-foot-3, post, Bishop Hartley High School)
Third-Team All-Ohio and First-Team All-Central District at Division II, averaging 15.5 points and 10.5 rebounds… Scored eight points in the Ohio-Kentucky All-Star Game… Surpassed 1,000 career points on Feb. 17 against Westerville Central… Had an outstanding postseason to lead the Hawks to their second Division II district championship in the last three seasons… Had a career high of 35 points against Beechcroft in the district semifinal… Scored 16 points in the district title game… Scored 14 second-half points, including the winning basket with 9.3 seconds to go, in a district tournament game.

Alison Smolinski (5-foot-9, guard, North Royalton High School)
First-Team All-Ohio and the Northeast Lakes District Player of the Year at Division I… Averaged 15.1 points in leading North Royalton to a 25-2 record… The Bears finished No. 1 in the final regular season cleveland.com girls basketball top 25… Had 17 points in the district title game against Bearea-Midpark… Scored 16 points in the Greater Cleveland Basketball Coaches Association All-Star Games… Recorded her 1,000th career point on Dec. 26

Melinda Trimmer (5-foot-7, guard, West Branch High School)
First-Team All-Ohio and the state's Co-Player of the Year at Division II… Also named Academic All-Ohio, Northeast Inland District Player of the Year and Northeastern Buckeye Conference Player of the Year… Averaged 20.2 points and 9.0 assists while posting a 4.0 grade-point average… Nominated for the Ohio Associated Press Ms. Basketball award… West Branch went 27-2 and advanced to the state final four for the first time in 11 years… Led West Branch in scoring and assists all four years and led the Warriors to a 94-13 record in four years… Finished her career with school records of 1,748 points and 800 assists… Became the all-time leading scorer on Dec. 17 against Canton South… Set the school record for assists in a game with 17 on Feb. 26 against Hubbard.

[Wick250]

Next year this team will develop and experience growing pains as these outstanding freshmen mesh with our very good sophomores.  We will almost certainly be the youngest DI team in the country.  Remember also that we will lack the leadership and talent of Schegel.  But in two years, look out   On paper, this will be the most talent assembled on one team in the history of the program.

[go guins]

 I don't think there is any conspiracy underway, but it does appear YSU is doing far better at women's athletics than it is with the men!?!?!?!? 
Women’s golf, tennis and BB are all doing better than the men, but hopefully the men can pull even with a playoff season in FB! 

[Wick250]

go guins,

No conspiracy but still mysterious.  Same facilities, same campus, same league affiliation, same deficiencies in funding compared to Horizon League rivals.  Yet the women generally flourish while their male counterparts struggle, with the notable exception of Gorby's track men.  Mysterious indeed.

[ysufan0505]

go guins,

No conspiracy but still mysterious.  Same facilities, same campus, same league affiliation, same deficiencies in funding compared to Horizon League rivals.  Yet the women generally flourish while their male counterparts struggle, with the notable exception of Gorby's track men.  Mysterious indeed.

In basketball, it's simple. Coaching.

[ysuguins4]

go guins,

No conspiracy but still mysterious.  Same facilities, same campus, same league affiliation, same deficiencies in funding compared to Horizon League rivals.  Yet the women generally flourish while their male counterparts struggle, with the notable exception of Gorby's track men.  Mysterious indeed.

In basketball, it's simple. Coaching.

He ain't lying.  On the women's side, you only have to look at what happened after Eddie D retired.  The program went into the tank under Hill and Martin only to be rescued by Bolden and now Barnes.  The men's team had many good seasons under Rosselli and a few with Rice, until Cleamons and Stroia got their hands on it.  Peters had it going in the right direction, but then Robic took it down the wrong path.  Slocum is a better coach then Cleamons, Stroia and Robic, but he's no Bolden or Barnes.  Hopefully they hire the right person after next season, and men's basketball becomes relevant again.

[IAA Fan]

I think the focus on women's programs is not mysterious. It is far more than coaching. Even Gorby's men's teams perform at a lesser-level than the ladies. Women's sports are still not as significant as their male counterparts. There is little no professional expectation, so this is the highest level for most female athletes. So you simply are going to get more "bang for your buck" with the ladies. 

As a DI college, we could not recruit high-school levels IV and less in Ohio men's basketball and even come close to competing at the same level we do now. As with football, a MBB prep player-of-the-year would not even look at YSU. There is no men's local basketball recruiting base, while the same cannot be said for the ladies. In track, we cannot field an entire team, so the focus is on certain events & Gorby knows how to play the points very well. Swimming is the same way. It has only been couple of years since we started to compete in team swim events outside of Diving (and seldom did we have high-end platform divers). Yet look at how our diving has suffered since we expanded the swimming program. Yet we are doing very well as a Horizon League swim team. Lady Pens golf and tennis out-perform the men.

The men's sports that do not perform as well as I would think they should are Men's Golf and baseball ...mainly because Kent is so strong in these sports I would think we could capitalize on that. Then again, Kent's new baseball coach receives over $300k a year ...which is probably about 10-times what YSU can afford. They have a baseball assistant that makes as much as Slocum. Even though there is a certain professional expectation in baseball, it is prior to the college level that top prospects are taken.

Golf is golf ...it has always been a money game & kids can play as-well-as adults. Just in the last couple weeks, the top golfer at Upper Arlington high school (Columbus) won an open invitational that included almost all of the OSU golf team.

[go guins]

1AA
I have far too much respect for your overall intelligence to pooh-paw your comments, but on the other hand, I am completely missing your point.  How do professional expectations following college change the competitive balance between 1A & 1AA?  I CERTAINLY "GET IT" regarding coaching and the extreme value it has to program success, but the professional expectation effect is lost on me??
If your point is the "bigger schools" get the better athletes, and since they can't make money at women's track they don't care where were they to school, that removes the individual competitive drive from the equation and I would challenge that.
We have MONTHS before YSU football is relevant again, so if it’s not too much trouble, I’d be interested in further explanation.
Thanks  and thanks for all you do on this blog!

[IAA Fan]

Sorry Go Guins. My daughter gets mad at me as well. I think a point is obvious & then when I reread it is obvious to no one. My business law prof at YSU said the same thing (Katz was his name for any older Williamson grads). Here are my points:

1. Women's sports have come a long way, but a D1 college is about as high a level as it gets for female athlete, as there are few women's pro sports and practically none that anyone cares about. HS female athletes are smart enough to realize that having their college education paid for (all or in part) is the best they can hope for. So YSU can pull in a much higher level of female athlete, which is why we have such solid resumes in this class. Not trying to insult the coaches, obviously this is a 1st-rate recruiting job at a mid-major level.

1a. Taking this one-step further, look at these resumes and pretend they are men. Would we compete in MVFC football or Horizon MBB with these level of athletes? Not really. We have to look further out for the top players and be willing to accept issues ...and end up recruiting questionable attitudes, to get D1 talent. This is a large part of the reason why we have come into so much in the way of player attitude troubles with our MBB as of late. As an example, an Ohio prep POY would not even look at YSU men's basketball, but one signed with the lady pens. In short we can recruit a better class of female athlete ...less people crying about contribution time or playing in cold-weather. I mean how much intelligence does it take to realize it is darn cold in NE Ohio during the winter?

2. Women's sports at YSU:

We have invested enormous resources into women's sports over the last few years. The reason for this goes back to the Title-IX gender equity requirements. YSU must match the number of women's scholarships with those for men. I think they gave us 25-years (from 1979) to do this, so Strollo had a lot of work to do these past few years. Now look at the old YSU women's sports:

Basketball: about 15 players
Diving: about 6 players
Volleyball: about 22 players
We had swimming an diving, but it was equal men vs women at that time.

We had no other women's sports. Now even if we gave scholarship every other female athlete on campus in the 70's ...it would only add up to about 50-60 scholarships (and I would say that is a very high guess). Well we have 63 scholarships in football alone, probably close to 100, if we include those on partial ...and we need to have an equal number of female scholarships. We simply did not have enough women's sports. In short, we did not even have enough women's sports to cover football scholarships, let alone MBB, baseball, golf, rifle, wrestling and the several other men's sports YSU offers (or did offer. Notice rifle and wrestling were dropped, along with men's swimming & diving). So we had to reduce the number of men's sports offered and increase the number of female sports (along with their scholarships) offered.

3. Baseball and men's golf should be our top non football/basketball sports, based on the local prep talent-level and the quality programs just down the road at Kent. I really think it is due to the lack of resources. Look how we almost lost baseball last year. Is suspect the only think that saved baseball is an increase in softball scholarships and the new women's bowling program.


4. Many sports are not impacted by division. Golf and tennis are prime examples, as with women's field hockey and LaCrosse. Upper Arlington High school teams are not called the "Golden Bears" for nothing. It is the home and Alma matter of Jack Nicholas. He build them a huge golf course and they are the top program in the state, they play the Buckeye golfers (and win) on a regular basis. It is the same course that OSU uses. I bring this up as players can be up for grabs in these sports, but they tend to be smarter individuals and migrate to high-end schools. Good golfers, tennis players and field hockey players also tend to be from wealthier families and do not need assistance.


The reason for my long post is to try and explain what I feel is the major impact on YSU sports ...much more than a particular assistant coach or head-coach.

[ysuhoops24]

just throwing this out....as long as Matt Anderson is the swim coach that program will never sniff a Horizon League title.  Nick does a great job with the divers, however. 

[Observer]

IAA hmmmm i could swear I heard some of those points somewhere  .  But very well explained nonetheless.  I would have to disagree with you on one point though,  The YSU women's track "team" may perform at a higher level, but this is probably due to the NCAA limit on scholarships in that sport 12.6 for men 18 for women.  No idea if YSU is fully funded or not (though I would suspect not).  I would say YSU track and field seemingly gets much better individuals on the men's side, 3 all-american awards on the men's side alone last year, plus a podium finish.  These things have not happened on the women's side.  So while Women's track may be doing "better" in terms of championships the Men's team is playing more of a national "avertising role".  I would think the latter would be better for an athletic department.   

P.S.   I have a very loose association with the NCAA track and field world (a cousin) but a trusted one, and it seems that YSU has one of the better coaches in the country tutoring the throwers on its track team.  There isn't a great deal to go on in his Bio, but from a historical standpoint he may be one of the best coaches YSU has ever had, in any sport.  It would be nice to hear more about him.

[ysufan0505]

Some happenings going on.


Dana Balash @DanaBalash21  ·  1h 1 hour ago
.@21WFMJSports  YSU Women's basketball player Krista Pietropola transfers to Slippery Rock. She played in 22 games, avg. 1 point &1 rebound.

Dana Balash @DanaBalash21  ·  1h 1 hour ago
.@21WFMJSports  YSU Women's assistant hoop coach Brenna Bankston has left the staff

[Wick250]

Wish the best for Pietropola.  She would have been a starter on any Hill or Martin team.  But there would be little playing time for her on this monster team that Barnes is forging.

[guinpen]

Wish the best for Pietropola.  She would have been a starter on any Hill or Martin team.  But there would be little playing time for her on this monster team that Barnes is forging.

I agree