Baseball Back on the Road for HL Doubleheaders at UIC, NKU

Friday, May 13

1:05 pm

Youngstown State University

UIC

Nathan Ball (Photo by Dave Dermer)

Photo by: Dave Dermer

Baseball Back on the Road for HL Doubleheaders at UIC, NKU

5/11/2022 11:20:00 AM | Baseball

Game Notes

Youngstown State at UIC, Northern Kentucky
Friday - 1:05 p.m. ET	at UIC - Video \| Audio \| Live Stats
Friday - 4:30 p.m. ET	at UIC - Video \| Audio \| Live Stats
Sunday - 12 p.m. ET	at Northern Kentucky - Audio \| Live Stats
Sunday - 3 p.m. ET	at Northern Kentucky - Audio \| Live Stats
Live Tweets	@YSUBaseball \| @UIC_Baseball \| @NKUNorseBSB \| #GoGuins

Weekend Preview

The Youngstown State baseball team (15-31, 8-13 Horizon League) will travel to UIC (20-20, 12-7 Horizon League) for a league doubleheader beginning on Friday at 1:05 p.m. ET. The Penguins will then head to Northern Kentucky (15-27, 8-13 Horizon League) for a league doubleheader beginning on Sunday at noon. The first game of each doubleheader will be seven innings.
Friday's doubleheader at UIC will be broadcast live on ESPN+. Live audio will be available for all four games this weekend at YSNLive.com. Live stats for all four games will be available through links on YSUsports.com. Fans can also follow @YSUBaseball on Twitter for live updates.
Junior right-hander Matt Brosky will start game one at UIC on Friday while freshman right-hander Lane Rhodes will take the ball for game two. Senior right-hander Chad Coles will start game one at Northern Kentucky on Sunday while senior right-hander Travis Perry is slated to start game two.
YSU will be facing UIC for the first time this season. The Penguins were swept by Northern Kentucky in a three-game Horizon League series at Eastwood Field in early April.
The Penguins have dropped seven straight contests after being swept by Wright State in a Horizon League doubleheader at Eastwood Field on Sunday. The Raiders earned a 3-1 comeback victory in game one before taking game two 9-6.
The Penguins have two road wins over Power Five opponents this season. YSU defeated ACC member Pitt 5-2 on March 16 before beating Big Ten member Penn State 2-1 on March 22. The win against Penn State marked YSU's first win over a Big Ten opponent since 1996. The Penguins also took Big Ten member Ohio State to extra innings on April 5 before falling 5-4.
Junior infielder Braeden O'Shaughnessy leads the Penguins with a .347 batting average, 61 hits, 12 doubles, seven home runs, 34 RBIs, a .545 slugging percentage, a .428 on-base percentage and 96 total bases. He leads the Horizon League in hits and batting average while also ranking in the top 10 in slugging, on-base percentage, RBIs, doubles, home runs and OPS.
Junior right-hander Matt Brosky leads the Horizon League with 79 strikeouts and 76 innings pitched while ranking second with a .233 opponent batting average and a 2.96 ERA. Brosky also leads the league and ranks sixth in the nation with three complete games.
Senior right-hander Chad Coles ranks third in the league with a .251 opponent batting average, eighth with 60 innings pitched and ninth with 53 strikeouts. Coles ranks second in program history with 94 career appearances. Coles is just the second player is program history to record at least 90 appearances, joining his former teammate Joel Hake, who holds the YSU record with 115 career appearances.
Senior first baseman Padraig O'Shaughnessy leads the Horizon League and ranks 11th in the nation with 43 walks. Junior left-hander Nathan Ball paces the league with eight saves while senior catcher Dylan Swarmer has caught a league-best 20 runners attempting to steal.
Senior third baseman Steven D'Eusanio is batting .365 over 19 games played since the start of April. He went 6-for-6 against Milwaukee on April 15, tying the school record for hits in a game. D'Eusanio hit four singles, a double and a home run to go 6-for-6 to match John Koehnlein's six-hit effort in seven at bats on May 24, 2007. D'Eusanio is tied for the team lead with seven home runs while ranking second on the squad with a .309 batting average, 46 hits, a .503 slugging percentage and 75 total bases.
Senior outfielder Lucas Nasonti has played in 207 games over four-plus years as a Penguin. He currently ranks tied for fourth in program history in career games played. He is just the 10th player in school history to play in at least 200 career games.
Senior right-hander Jon Snyder was named a National Player of the Week by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper on March 21 after a stellar outing on March 18 at Purdue Fort Wayne. Snyder allowed just one hit and struck out a season-high 10 batters over 6.1 scoreless innings to lead the Penguins to a 4-0 victory. He was also named Horizon League Co-Pitcher of the Week on March 22.
Sophomore infielder Seth Lucero was named Horizon League Batter of the Week on March 22 after batting .500 and slugging .850 with 10 hits in 20 at bats over four games played at Pitt and Purdue Fort Wayne. He recorded two doubles, a triple, a home run and five RBIs. He also registered six runs scored, 17 total bases, a .500 on-base percentage and two stolen bases in two attempts.

Youngstown State at UIC, Northern Kentucky

A Win in Game One on Friday Would...

Snap a seven-game losing skid.
Snap a four-game losing streak to UIC.
Improve the Penguins' overall record to 16-31.
Improve YSU's Horizon League record to 9-13.
Be the 330th in head coach Dan Bertolini's career and his 101st at Youngstown State.

Scouting The Flames

UIC is 20-20 overall and 12-7 in Horizon League play after splitting a pair of league doubleheaders this past weekend. The Flames are in second place in the conference standings.
Senior outfielder Bryan Rosario leads the Flames with a .340 batting average, 52 hits, 22 walks, a .442 on-base percentage and nine stolen bases. Sophomore catcher Cole Conn leads UIC with 12 doubles, seven home runs and 38 RBIs.
Sophomore left-hander Nate Peterson is tied for the Horizon League lead with 79 strikeouts in 69 innings over 11 starts. Junior right-hander Tyler Ingram has a 3.53 ERA and 49 strikeouts in 63.2 innings over 11 starts. Senior right-hander Tanner Shears has made a team-high 20 appearances out of the bullpen.
UIC posted a 30-18 overall record and an 28-11 mark in Horizon League play last season. The Flames were picked second out of seven teams in the 2022 Horizon League Baseball Preseason Poll.

Scouting The Norse

Northern Kentucky is 15-27 overall and 8-13 in Horizon League play after splitting a league doubleheader against UIC on Saturday. The Norse will play at Cincinnati on Wednesday before playing a league doubleheader at Oakland on Friday.
Junior infielder Manny Vorhees is batting .314 and slugging .550 with 15 doubles, two triples, seven home runs and a team-high 43 RBIs. Senior outfielder Brennan Gick is batting .296 and slugging .521 with a team-high eight home runs.
Junior right-hander Kyle Klingenbeck has a team-high 68 strikeouts in 50.1 innings over 12 starts. Sophomore left-hander Ben Gerl has 54 strikeouts in a team-high 69 innings pitched over 15 appearances and nine starts. Senior right-hander TJ Graves has made a team-high 17 appearances, 15 of which have come out of the bullpen.
Northern Kentucky posted a 17-31 overall record and a 14-25 mark in Horizon League play last season. The Norse were picked fifth out of seven teams in the 2022 Horizon League Preseason Poll.

Series History - UIC

Overall: UIC leads 66-29
Bertolini: 9-17 // Home: 24-22 // Away: 3-41
Neutral: 2-3
Current Win Streak: 4 by UIC
First meeting: May 14, 2004 (W 11-8)
Youngstown State and UIC will be meeting for the first time this season.
Youngstown State and UIC met each season from 2004 to 2019 before the 2020 conference slate was wiped out due to COVID-19.
YSU went 4-5 against UIC last season. The Penguins won three of four games at Eastwood Field before the Flames won three of four in Chicago. UIC also defeated YSU 7-4 in the first round of the Horizon League Tournament.
With a 1-0 victory in Chicago last season, the Penguins snapped a nine-game losing streak at UIC and picked up their first win in Chicago since 2016.

Series History – Northern Kentucky

Overall: Northern Kentucky leads 21-9
Bertolini: 8-16 // Home: 4-11 // Away: 5-10 // Neutral: 0-0
Current Win Streak: 3 by Northern Kentucky
NKU swept a three-game series at Eastwood Field back in early April.
YSU and NKU split a four-game series in Highland Heights, Ky., last season.
Northern Kentucky won five of six meetings against YSU in 2019. The Norse swept the Penguins in Highland Heights, Ky., in March before taking two of three games at Eastwood Field in April.
The two teams did not meet in 2020 as the conference schedule was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
29 of the 30 all-time meetings have come since 2016 when NKU joined the Horizon League.
First meeting: May 20, 1977 (L 3-4)

Recapping Wright State

Game 1 - Sunday, May 8 // L 1-3 (7 innings)

In game one, Wright State scored three unearned runs in the top of the fifth inning to win 3-1 and spoil an outstanding start by YSU's Matt Brosky. Brosky surrendered just three hits and did not walk a batter over seven innings in the hard-luck loss.
The Penguins were only able to back their starter with three hits of their own off of three Wright State hurlers.
Youngstown State scored the first run of the afternoon in the bottom of the third as Bucko drew a two-out walk and came around to score when Braeden O'Shaughnessy doubled to left-center on an 0-2 pitch. The Penguins held that 1-0 lead until the fifth when Wright State's Julian Greenwell made YSU pay for a two-out error that extended the inning with a three-run triple that accounted for the only other runs of the game.
The Penguins had runners in scoring position in the fifth and sixth innings but couldn't close the gap. Nasonti hit a two-out double in the fifth, and Andre Good and Padraig O'Shaughnessy drew back-to-back two-out walks in the sixth.

Game 2 - Sunday, May 8 // L 6-9

Wright State took a quick 4-0 lead in game two by scoring two earned runs and two unearned runs in the top of the first.
Two singles and a walk loaded the bases with one out, and Zane Harris served a two-run single to left that scored Alec Sayre and Luikart. With runners on first and second, Harris and Gehrig Anglin executed a double steal, and Anglin took an extra 90 feet on a throwing error to put the Raiders up 3-0. Harris later scored on a two-out fielding error to make it 4-0.
Those were the only four runs of the game that YSU starter Chad Coles allowed in his six innings of work, which gave the Penguins an opportunity to cut into the lead. Bucko led off the bottom of the fifth with a single, and D'Eusanio hit a two-run home run two batters later to make the score 4-2. It was D'Eusanio's seventh home run of the season, which moved him into a tie for the team lead.
Coles held the deficit at two through the sixth inning, but the Raiders scored five runs with two outs off of YSU's bullpen in the seventh to go up 9-2. Luikart hit a leadoff double, but Casey Marshalwitz retired the next two batters and had Luikart on third with two outs. Wright State followed with three straight hits to remove Marshalwitz from the game, and Jon Snyder walked three batters before handing the baton to Travis Perry. Perry allowed an RBI single to Luikart on his second at-bat of the inning, and Bucko threw out Greenwell at the plate to save another run from scoring.
Down 9-2, Youngstown State kept battling over its final nine outs and eventually got the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning before falling.
Nasonti and Bucko hit back-to-back singles to start the bottom of the seventh, and a double steal with one out put both of them in scoring position. D'Eusanio followed with a single to right that plated Nasonti to make the score 9-3, but Bucko was thrown out trying to score from second.
The Penguins got another run in the bottom of the eighth when Swarmer hit a one-out triple and scored on Turner Grau's RBI ground out. It was Swarmer's first triple of the season and Grau's first RBI. Grau made his long-awaited season debut on Sunday after missing the first 44 games of the campaign with an injury.
In the ninth, Nasonti hit a leadoff double and scored one pitch later on Bucko's RBI single up the middle that made the score 9-5. After a pitching change, Braeden O'Shaughnessy hit Donnie Nicodemus' first offering to left for a double that moved Bucko to third. D'Eusanio followed with a sacrifice fly to score Bucko and make it 9-6, and Padraig O'Shaughnessy reached on an infield single with two outs to put runners at the corners. Nicodemus was able to strike out Swarmer to preserve the game.

Up Next

The Penguins will return home on Thursday, May 19, to begin a three-game Horizon League series against UIC at 3 p.m. It will be the final series of the regular season.