Correspondent file photo / Robert Hayes. The Youngstown State bowling team gathers during the Penguin Classic on Oct. 13 at Holiday Bowl in Struthers.

YOUNGSTOWN — In 2021, Youngstown State bowling coach Doug Kuberski led the Penguins to their first-ever Final Four appearance at the NCAA championships.

That season, Kuberski had added two freshman bowlers to his roster and then four more a year later. Since then, those six bowlers have helped usher in the most successful era in program history.

After reaching the Final Four once again last year and earning a third-place overall finish, YSU came into this season with a singular goal in mind — to get back to the Final Four and this time, go one step further and chase their hope for a national championship.

The first step in realizing that goal came to fruition on Wednesday, as the Penguins were selected for the NCAA tournament for the fifth straight season, getting placed in the Rochester Regional after earning the No. 3 overall seed in the field.

“There’s a sense of, we’re excited to be here, but there’s some unfinished business to attend to and this team wants to finish the job,” Kuberski said during the team’s NCAA Selection Show watch party on Wednesday. “We have six seniors that have been together at least four years, and I think they want to get it done, and they can.”

YSU’s first match in the regional will take place on Friday April 4 at 9 a.m., when the Penguins will face the winner of the region’s first match from the previous day between Marian (Wis.) and Saint Vincent.

“I definitely think that we’re in it to win it,” senior Jade Cote said. “I think we have all the chance of making it to the Final Four if we stay together, bowl as well as we can, stay as a team and support each other.”

North Carolina A&T and Louisiana Tech are the other two teams in the Penguins’ region and will face each other on April 4, as well.

The winner of the region advances to the Final Four on April 11 and 12 at Suncoast Bowling Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“It’s going to be a different environment this year, especially after we’ve been in the Lansing (Region) the last three years,” senior Ellie Drescher said. “Very excited for the new environment. It’s going to be a good one for us because we have six seniors, so it’s going to be our final bang before the Final Four, we hope. We have such good cohesiveness together, and these girls are my rocks. I know we’re going to do amazing.”

Including the six seniors — Drescher, Cote, Madison Dosek, Lyndsay Eliis and graduate students Madyson Marx and Kirsten Moore — the Penguins returned eight bowlers from last year’s Final Four team.

So YSU has no shortage of experience, which has helped the team navigate one of the toughest schedules in the country this season en route to an 87-32 overall record.

YSU took first place at two tournaments this season — the Garden State Classic and the Music City Classic — while putting together top-four finishes at four other tournaments.

“There’s nothing we haven’t seen,” Kuberski said. “With this group, we’ve seen all situations, whether it be the good, the bad or the in-between. The adversity they’ve all been through together, it gives you a lot of confidence that no matter how you start, you’re going to have a chance to win.”

In order to prepare for what they’ll see in the tournament, the Penguins have had the luxury of bowling in the deepest, toughest conference in college bowling, Conference USA.

Last week, at the Conference USA Championships, YSU began the tournament as the No. 2 seed, its highest spot in program history. But the Penguins lost to Sam Houston 0-2 and Stephen F. Austin 0-2 to take seventh, their lowest finish in a tournament this season.

“You just get used to it. We were the No. 2 seed last week and we were bowling the No. 7 seed, who was also the No. 9 team in the country,” Kuberski said. “It’s just crazy how that works. We’re just used to these matches all being against top-10 teams and all being down to one or two shots, 10-20 pins a match. So I think it just gets you really used to it, and you actually kind of embrace it and start to like and welcome that battle and those challenges with those teams.”

While the experience of bowling against the best on a regular basis helps, it gave the Penguins something to learn from and work on heading into the NCAA tournament next week.

“Like last week, we didn’t have our best event. So what could we do better?” Kuberski said. “We meet, talk about our notes and try to apply that to next week, and then keep doing the same thing. It’s just an accumulation of the little things.”

Kuberski said the Penguins have also learned from their experience in the Regional and Final Four run last year and are hoping to put that into practice this year to get there again.

“I think the biggest thing is comfort. Knowing that in bowling, all sports really, the No. 1 goal is you’ve got to have people that are comfortable to go out there and perform at a high level,” Kuberski said. “In bowling, we’re wired to play the long game. The season’s long, tournaments are long, but now it’s all condensed into a short period. So we’ve all gotta do a better job this year to be a little more aggressive and make quicker decisions and be more comfortable quicker to finish the job.”