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Can YSU remain among the best?

Is Youngstown State one of better teams in the Horizon League? My friend Mike laughs at the thought. ‘Who have they beaten?’ he asks. He starts rattling off Thiel, Westminster, USC-Upstate, North Carolina Central, SEMO (Southeast Missouri State), Robert Morris, Binghamton, along with wins against IUPUI, UIC, Oakland and Detroit in the Horizon League. Eleven wins, seven losses; that’s the Youngstown State University men’s basketball record. They are 8-0 at the Beeghly Center for the first time in decades. Mike wonders what is the overall record of the teams they played. Here ...

Gritty wins define these Penguins

Quiet. Michael Akuchie could hear the sounds of silence inside the confines of the Beeghly Center after basketball games. His squeaking shoes echoed. The sound of the bounces of the inflated, leather basketball, or as it grazed nylon baskets or clanked off the metallic rim reverberated in the abandoned space. The 6-foot-8 junior from Plantation, Florida, spent countless hours in the quiet basketball arena honing his craft, putting up shot after shot with a Youngstown State University men’s basketball student assistant there to corral the errant shots. It has paid off this season, ...

Even windy weather can’t stop Penguins

CHICAGO The incandescent glow of laptops and phones began to illuminate the quiet lull of a bus headed eastward toward Youngstown in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the final day of 2019. Youngstown State University men’s basketball trainer Todd Burkey was busy watching seminars on his laptop to renew his certification. Assistant coach Ethan Faulkner was intently analyzing Monday’s win over UIC as the Penguins go to 9-6 and 2-0 in the Horizon League, the only team to win two straight road wins to start this conference season. This mode of travel, taking a bus back from ...

Area wrestlers take on the challenge

Stepping on the line seems so easy. It’s a flat line on a mat. You simply step on it. And yet so many miss it. So many avoid it. And so many are scared to death of it. The lines on a wrestling mat are approximately 3 feet apart from another and painted either red or green, and each competitor must step on their designated line before a match can start. They’re right in the middle of the mat. You can’t miss them. Well, usually, you can’t miss them. Standing in front of a large crowd with all eyes on you as you prepare to tussle with someone who is often stronger, faster ...

Penguins begin Horizon schedule

Assistant coach Jason Slay is sitting near the front of the team’s bus. His AirPods are in, black ballcap is on his head and his focus is straight ahead as the vehicle starts motoring down I-71 Friday afternoon toward its final destination in Indianapolis. The attention of the Youngstown State University men’s basketball associate coach is on a video of the team’s opponents the next two days — IUPUI and UIC, the alphabet soup teams of the Horizon League — which is playing on his laptop. Today at noon the Penguins begin league play against IUPUI in Indianapolis. YSU coach ...

Who will be watching the Penguins?

YOUNGSTOWN — The echoes are almost deafening with every bounce of the air-filled, leather ball. Shoes are squeaking with the sounds ringing in the ears of dozens of fans occupying the red chairback seats and bleachers in the upper part of the Beeghly Center, built in the early 1970s. Most are familiar faces, season-ticket holders. The famous George Junior and St. Vincent-St. Mary game featuring a young LeBron James, when people had to sit on cold, concrete steps because there were no seats available. That was me and my wife, watching that Sunday afternoon contest. Five Youngstown ...