The Youngstown State baseball team (0-10) will continue its early-season road stretch with a four-game series at Georgia Tech (7-4) beginning on Friday at 2 p.m. from Russ Chandler Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. Friday's series opener has been moved up two hours from its original start time of 4 p.m. The Penguins and Yellow Jackets will proceed to play a doubleheader on Saturday at 1 p.m. before closing the series on Sunday at 1 p.m.
Friday's game will mark the first meeting on the diamond between the Penguins and Yellow Jackets since the 2017 season. The game will be broadcast live on ACC Network Extra and YSNLive.com while live stats will be available through links on YSUsports.com. Fans can also follow @YSUBaseball on X for live updates.
Youngstown State at Georgia Tech
Weekend Preview
- Junior right-hander Jacob Gehring will take the mound in the series opener on Friday while sophomore left-hander Sloan Ulrich will start game one of Saturday's doubleheader. Starters for game two on Saturday and for Sunday's series finale are to be announced.
- The Penguins and Yellow Jackets will meet on the diamond for the first time since Feb. 26, 2017. YSU picked up a 12-3 victory over No. 17 Georgia Tech at Russ Chandler Stadium in the most recent meeting. That victory was Dan Bertolini's first as Youngstown State's head coach.
- The Penguins are looking for their first win of 2024 after dropping a wild 21-19 decision at Ohio on Tuesday. YSU set new season highs with 21 runs and 16 hits as five different Penguins recorded multiple hits in the first midweek game of 2024.
- Freshman outfielders Alejandro Covas and Derrick Tarpley Jr. have each hit safely in four straight games. Covas is batting .333 while leading YSU with five stolen bases while Tarpley Jr. is batting .297 with a team-high eight RBIs. Covas went 2-for-4 with a pair of RBIs at Ohio on Tuesday while Tarpley Jr. went 3-for-5 with a double, his first-career home run, four RBIs and four runs scored.
- Redshirt senior shortstop Trey Law is batting .333 and has a team-high 13 hits through the first 10 games of the 2024 season. Junior catcher Ian Francis is also batting .333 after recording three hits in each of the last three games. Francis matched his career high with three hits on Saturday at Louisville by going 3-for-5 with two RBIs. He went 3-for-5 with four RBIs and three runs scored while coming up a home run shy of the cycle on Tuesday at Ohio.
- Sophomore left-hander Sloan Ulrich leads the Penguins with 10 strikeouts and 13.2 innings pitched over three starts through the first three-plus weeks of the season. The transfer from Cuyahoga Community College recorded a season-high six strikeouts at Louisville on Saturday.
- Redshirt senior shortstop Trey Law and sophomore infielder Matt Thompson were each named to Perfect Game's Horizon League Preseason All-Conference Team in the website's 2024 conference preview.
- Six different Penguins were listed among Perfect Game's Top MLB Draft Prospects in the Horizon League. Gehring was ranked the league's No. 9 prospect for the 2024 MLB Draft. He was joined on the website's top-25 prospects for 2024 by Law (No. 21), senior outfielder RJ Sherwood (No. 23) and junior catcher Ian Francis (No. 25). Thompson was listed as Perfect Game's top 2025 prospect while freshman outfielder Derrick Tarpley Jr. was ranked as the league's No. 2 prospect for 2026.
- Freshman outfielder Derrick Tarpley Jr. was selected as the Preseason Horizon League Freshman of the Year by D1Baseball.com in the website's 2024 conference preview. The Brownsville, Pa., native was drafted by the Oakland Athletics with the 526th overall pick in the 18th round of the 2023 Major League Baseball Draft.
- Youngstown State was picked fifth in the 2024 Horizon League Baseball Preseason Poll after a vote of the league's head coaches. The Penguins were picked to finish fourth in the Horizon League by D1Baseball.com.
Previewing Georgia Tech
A Win on Friday Would...
- Give YSU its first victory of the 2024 season.
- Give the Penguins their second straight victory over the Yellow Jackets.
- Give the Penguins their sixth win over a Power Five opponent in the last three seasons.
- Give YSU its 10th victory over a Power Five opponent and seventh win over an ACC opponent during Dan Bertolini's tenure.
- Be the 355th in head coach Dan Bertolini's career and his 126th at Youngstown State.
Scouting The Yellow Jackets
- Georgia Tech enters the weekend at 7-4 overall and on a three-game losing streak after a 7-0 home loss to Northeastern on Wednesday.
- Senior infielder Mike Becchetti is batting .385 and slugging .718 with four home runs and 11 RBIs. Freshman outfielder Drew Burress is batting .375 and slugging 1.104 while leading the Yellow Jackets with 18 hits, nine home runs and 20 RBIs.
- Junior right-hander Aeden Finateri has a 2-0 record and 1.06 ERA with team highs of 21 strikeouts and 17 innings pitched over three starts. Sophomore right-hander Carson Ballard owns a 1-1 record, one save and a 1.38 ERA in 13 innings pitched over three appearances and two starts on the mound.
- Georgia Tech posted an overall record of 30-27 with a 12-18 mark in ACC play in 2023. The Yellow Jackets were picked fifth out of seven teams in the Coastal Division in the 2024 ACC Baseball Preseason Poll.
Series History
- Overall: Georgia Tech leads 5-1
- Bertolini: 1-2 // H: 0-0 // A: 1-5 // N: 0-0
- Current Win Streak: 1 by Youngstown State
- Last Meeting: Feb. 26, 2017 (W, 12-3)
- First Meeting: Feb. 22, 2008 (L, 0-4)
- Georgia Tech won the first five meetings before YSU picked up a 12-3 victory in the most recent meeting in 2017 that was Dan Bertolini's first win as head coach.
- The Yellow Jackets swept a three-game series in Atlanta during the 2008 season in the first-ever meetings between the programs.
Recapping Ohio
- Youngstown State cranked out 16 hits, but the Penguins dropped a 21-19 decision to Ohio on Tuesday at Bob Wren Stadium in Athens, Ohio.
- Freshman Derrick Tarpley Jr. went 3-for-5 with four runs scored, a double, a home run and four runs batted in while Trey Law and Ian Francis also tallied three hits for the Penguins. Law also drove in two runs and scored three times while Francis drove in four and scored twice.
- Law hit a leadoff single, stole second and scored on a wild pitch in the bottom of the first inning to put YSU in front. Francis and Matt Thompson each walked and scored on a two-out, two-run single from Alejandro Covas that gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead.
- The Penguins exploded for 10 runs on six hits in the top of the third to take a 13-1 lead. Tarpley led off the rally with a double and hit a three-run blast, the first of his career, later in the inning. Francis, Law and Teddy Ruffner also had run-scoring hits during the rally.
- The Bobcats used a 10-run inning in the bottom of the third to get back within 13-11 after three innings.
- Trey Pancake's run-scoring groundout plated Covas to put the Penguins back up three runs at 14-11, but the Bobcats tacked on six runs in the bottom half to take a 17-14 lead. Ohio added three more runs in the sixth to extend the lead to 21-14.
- Francis drilled a two-run single in the seventh that plated Tarpley and Law to cut the deficit back to five runs at 21-16. In the top of the ninth, Tarpley drove in his fourth run of the game, and Francis tripled to plate Tarpley to cut the Ohio lead back to three runs. RJ Sherwood followed with a double to left to score Francis for the final run of the high-scoring affair.
Up Next
Youngstown State is scheduled for two midweek non-conference games next week to close out its early-season road stretch. The Penguins will play at Kent State on Tuesday at 4 p.m. before a contest at Pitt on Wednesday at 3 p.m.
