Terre Haute, Ind. -- The Youngstown State football team earned a hard-fought 28-0 victory over Indiana State at Memorial Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The defense shut down the Sycamores for most of the afternoon while the offense found its stride in the fourth quarter to grind out a victory in the Guins' conference opener.

For most of the afternoon both defenses kept things close before the Penguins broke through in the fourth.

Leading 7-0, senior tailback Kevin Smith scored on a 21-yard jaunt with 10:05 left. Later, quarterback Brandon Summers connected on a one-yard pass with Aaron Pitts with 4:39 remaining to pull out the victory.

Summers had two touchdown passes in the contest, connecting on 20-of-32 passes for 185 yards and two scores. Dominique Barnes and Donald Jones each finished with six catches each. Kevin Smith had 14 carries for 72 yards and a score.

The defense, which had its first road shutout since at Indiana State in 2005 (45-0), also got into the scoring act when linebacker Na'eem Outler returned an interception 37 yards for a touchdown with 3:54 left.

With the victory, Youngstown State improves to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. An upstart Indiana State team falls to 0-5 and 0-2 in the league, while suffering their 31st consecutive defeat.

For the first time this year, the Penguins found the end zone in the opening quarter. After punting on its initial possession, YSU went ahead 7-0 when Summers connected on a 36-yard strike over the Indiana State defense to Dominique Barnes with 5:37 left in the opening quarter. The play capped a four-play 56-yard drive that lasted just 1:47.

In the first quarter, the defense dominated allowing just 23 yards on 12 plays while not allowing the Sycamores to earn a first down. ISU did however pick up its initial first down of the game early in the second quarter. YSU had 83 yards in the first quarter on 14 snaps.

Indiana State started Ryan Roberts at quarterback. Roberts had not thrown a pass or started at quarterback in the first four games of the year before getting the nod on Saturday.

The second quarter saw each team miss plenty of scoring opportunities.

After a key Indiana State special teams play pinned the Penguins inside their own five, field possession shifted.

The Sycamores force a three-and-out and had great field position when Erik Johnson's punt was fair caught at the YSU 31. ISU was in business with a 2nd-and-6 at the YSU 16, but a mishandle by Antoine Brown was recovered by Joe Marshall at the 17.

YSU moved the ball quickly into Indiana State territory and had a first down at the ISU 25-yard line, but was only able to reach the 16. Stephen Blose came on to try a 33-yard field goal in the final seconds, however after waiting to kick through three Sycamore timeouts, he pushed the ball to the left and the score remained 7-0 at the break.

In the first half, YSU out-yarded Indiana State 185-67 and had a 2-1 advantage in turnovers.

After playing two straight weeks on the road, the Penguins finally returned home next Saturday to play host to Missouri State. Kickoff for the contest at Stambaugh Stadium against the Bears is set for 6 p.m