Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes From left, Joe Alexander, Kyle Kroynovich, Ron Strollo, Jamie Hall, Steve Pinciaro, Robb Schmidt, John Vogel and Trevor Parks man the scorer’s table during the Youngstown State women’s basketball team's win over Cleveland State on Sunday at the Beeghly Center.

YOUNGSTOWN — The few that braved the cold, snowy conditions of Winter Storm Fern to attend the Youngstown State women’s basketball team’s home game against Cleveland State on Sunday likely felt as if they had been transported back in time to the COVID-era in 2020-21.

The stands were empty and only a handful of people were in the arena besides the coaches and players of the two teams.

The official attendance was 30, but outside of the gameday staff, the actual attendance number that witnessed the Penguins earn a decisive victory over its Northeast Ohio rival was likely even smaller than that, as YSU encouraged fans to stay home and avoid the elements outside.

But winter storm or not, the show must go on. Even as other schools around the region opted to move up or reschedule their games, YSU moved forward.

“(The people here), they’re amazing. It’s a big reason why I’m at YSU,” YSU women’s basketball coach Melissa Jackson said. “Obviously you go through the interview process and you talk to your administrators, you get that feel. But ever since I’ve been here, they have shown up, and they’ve gone above and beyond for me and for our program, and Sunday was just another example of that.

“It really just speaks to (athletic director Ron Strollo) and the type of leader that he is. He has surrounded himself with an unbelievable staff that are just willing to do whatever it takes to make the game go on.”

The empty stands weren’t the only unusual difference from a normal gameday atmosphere inside Zidian Family Arena.

In order to minimize the number of people that had to make the arctic trek to the venue, YSU orchestrated the game with a reduced number of game staff. As a result, many of those that worked the game were not performing their usual gameday duties, in order to ensure that essential roles were filled.

“I want to brag on our team. We’ve got just a great group of people that work in the athletics department,” Strollo said. “They go to great lengths to help our student-athletes, and this was just an example.”

At the scorer’s table, only two people were filling their normal duties — director of athletic communications Trevor Parks was doing game stats, while Joe Alexander was running the shot clock.

Others stepped in to unfamiliar roles to make sure the necessary jobs were filled. Athletic business manager Kyle Kroynovich operated the game clock, assistant director of athletic communications Jamie Hall was the official scorer and assistant athletic director Steve Pinciaro helped with game substitutions and served as an extra pair of eyes at the table.

Then, Robb Schmidt, the men’s basketball play-by-play announcer and associate athletic director, was the public address announcer in the arena; Tim Stuart, senior associate athletic director for external operations, helped coordinate between the arena PA, music and videoboard; Chris Sumner, assistant athletic director for corporate sponsorships and marketing, also did arena music and videoboard; Matt Rollins associate athletic director for facilities, operated replay and performed other arena tasks, and finally even Strollo got involved as he operated the scoreboard.

“I think I’ve done the scoreboard before,” Strollo said. “You know you don’t necessarily want the athletic director for the home team controlling the clock, so I wanted to make sure whatever I did was pretty neutral to make sure that came across the right way.”

In addition to the skeleton game staff, YSU also had enough of its usual ESPN+ and radio crew in order to broadcast the game online and over the radio.

Athletic communications graduate assistant Anthony Romo did play-by-play on ESPN+ and assistant director of athletic communications Drae Smith did radio play-by-play on 570 WKBN, while Matt Maher, Marissa Masano, Steve Peterson and Maggie Young operated cameras and Kevin Davis, the video production specialist and broadcast producer, oversaw the group in the broadcast control center in the Don Constantini Multimedia Center, including director Dan McCormick, replay operator Kris Doran and graphics producer Jory Baniecki.

“Kudos to everybody, the staffing we were able to pull together, as well as the ESPN crew,” Jackson said. “Because I know our Penguin faithful were probably sitting in their warm houses watching that game. So for us to be able to put it up on ESPN and for our fans to watch it, I think deserves a lot of credit as well.”

Finally, in order to make sure her players did not have to walk or drive through the snow, Jackson picked the team up at their apartments in downtown Youngstown and drove them to the Beeghly Center.

“I think that’s a little bit of the mom inside me,” Jackson said. “I’ve got a nice, big SUV, so I piled them all in and made a couple trips, just for peace of mind. But also, when they commit to our program, like we’ve said, we’re very much a family. And I want to make sure their parents always believe that we’re going to take care of them and make sure they’re safe and sound.”

Strollo said YSU considered the possibility of moving or rescheduling the game, but after taking stock of the situation, ultimately decided to play the game.

The Vikings and the three game officials arrived in Youngstown on Saturday before the storm began, but had to stay an extra night on Sunday night before leaving town to return home on Monday. Then everyone else that worked the game made it home safe later that Sunday afternoon.

“Everyone was still able to get down and get home safely,” Strollo said. “We’re just fortunate. We were around good people, and Coach Jackson was patient with us. We just wanted to make sure we got that game in, because anytime you start rescheduling games, it gets harder and harder. And it wasn’t necessarily that much better on Monday if we were going to bump that game.”