Correspondent file photo / Robert Hayes Youngstown State pitcher Jacob Gehring delivers during a game last season at Eastwood Field. Gehring returns to lead an experienced pitching rotation for the Penguins in 2025.

YOUNGSTOWN — Despite past success at prior coaching stops, former Youngstown State baseball coach Dan Bertolini was never quite able to get the program off the ground during his tenure.

Since his hire in the summer of 2016, Bertolini had losing seasons in six of his eight years leading the program. The Penguins went 32-24 in 2021 and the 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bertolini’s tenure culminated with YSU’s rough 2024 campaign, during which the Penguins started 0-15 to begin the season and finished 16-44. YSU parted ways with Bertolini after the end of the season and promoted former assistant coach Trevor Charpie to take over the program.

As Charpie and the Penguins get set to begin the 2025 season, he has lofty goals for where he hopes to guide the YSU program over time.

“We want to be conference champions. We want to win a regional, we want to go to Super Regionals and the College World Series,” Charpie said during YSU’s preseason press conference on Tuesday. “That’s the goal for this program, and I think we have all the things necessary for us to really build this into something that’s really incredible.

“We’ve looked at other schools that have been able to do it. Indiana State is a great example, and we kind of look to them as a blueprint as to how we become a mid-major that competes at the national level.”

Even with the struggles that YSU went through last year, the Penguins found some success at the end of the season. Despite being the lowest seed (No. 6), YSU won four games in two days to reach the Horizon League championship game, where it lost to Northern Kentucky.

Even with a vastly different roster, the Penguins hope they can continue to build off the momentum of how last season ended.

“I think last year was really a process to being process-oriented,” Charpie said. “So we stuck to the process the whole year, and then it paid off in the end for us. So we kind of bring that same mentality in. We stay process-oriented, and we know that one pitch or one game doesn’t define our season. We play pitch-to-pitch every single game, so just building off what got us out there and everybody here knows we can do it. We can get to that point. Now we stay process-oriented and hopefully it works out for us.”

With nine seniors and 15 juniors leading the 40-member roster, the Penguins will feature a veteran group this season.

While the roster still features plenty of local homegrown talent, including Canfield native and South Range alum Jacob Gehring, who will anchor the Penguins’ pitching staff, YSU has brought in 21 newcomers, including six freshmen and an experienced 15-member transfer class.

“We got a lot of guys in the portal who’ve played at other colleges throughout the nation — a lot of guys have been to regionals, even,” Charpie said. “So I would say we’re a little bit older. We have a good group of (nine) core freshmen that’ll be a nice building block for the future.”

With right-hander Gehring (4-7, 7.03 ERA) leading the group, the Penguins will rely on several seniors in their pitching rotation, including right-handed Kansas transfer JJ Tylicki, right-handed Louisiana transfer Phil Brennaman and right-handed Spring Hill College (Division II) transfer Harun Pelja.

“I think this pitching staff is unbelievable,” Gehring said. “Coach Charpie and (assistant) coach Evan Johnson have done a great job developing us and putting us in the best position possible, not only for us, but for the team as well. We’re all on the mound just trying to make our team better, and I think they’ve done a great job of doing that. I think this pitching staff is super talented, but I think when we put it all together and just execute focus on what we control, it’ll make us great in the end.”

In their lineup, the Penguins only bring back two returning starters — Eli Brown and Teddy Ruffner, as well as Jack Johnson, who started 10 games and made 15 appearances, batting .206.

Brown, an outfielder, is the most experienced returner, having played in 116 games while making 90 starts across three seasons. He batted .242 and had five home runs last year, while Ruffner batted .241.

Of the transfers, senior infielder Tommy Rover (Div. II Fresno Pacific), junior infielder Garrett Cutting (Utah Tech), senior outfielder Kyle Fossum (Washington), junior outfielder Brayden Kuriger (Nicholls), senior infielder Cole Smith (UT Martin) and junior infielder Brayden Foster (Mount St. Mary’s) each figure to be contributors to YSU’s lineup.

“They know the goal is to win the Horizon League, and that will always be the goal,” Charpie said. “We don’t sell ourselves short, and we’re going to go everywhere with the mindset that we’re going to win these games.”

Despite having only six teams, the conference continues to be competitive with traditional league power Wright State and defending tournament champion Northern Kentucky leading the way.

“What’s cool is we play each other six times before we get to the postseason, so you get to learn your opponent really well, but they also get to learn you,” Charpie said. “Obviously Northern Kentucky, they’re defending champions, so they have the target on their back and that’s who we hope to take their place as conference champion. But all those teams and all those coaches are very good. I think there’s a lot of new players in the conference this year, so it’ll be fun to see how this goes.”

The Penguins open the season Friday at 4 p.m. with a three-game road series at Baylor.