YSU volleyball opens the weekend

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State’s volleyball team will open its 51st season by hosting the YSU Invitational this weekend.

YSU’s roster includes freshman Presley Stokes from Wellsville, freshman Layne Graffice from Marlington and senior Abbie Householder from Canfield.

The four-team round robin tournament will be held today and Saturday at the Beeghly Center.

Today’s schedule includes Duquesne vs. Canisius at 11 a.m., YSU vs. Mercyhurst at 1 p.m., Canisius vs. Mercyhurst at 4 p.m. and YSU vs. Duquesne at 7 p.m.

Saturday’s schedule is Mercyhurst vs. Duquesne at noon and YSU vs. Canisius at 3 p.m.

There is free admission for all matches.

Cardinals topple Buccos

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Thomas Saggese hit a go-ahead RBI double and Jordan Walker homered in a three-run seventh inning to help the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-1 on Thursday.

Miles Mikolas allowed one run on four hits and a walk and struck out five in five innings.

Kyle Leahy (4-1) recorded four strikeouts in two scoreless innings of relief, Riley O’Brien pitched a scoreless eighth and JoJo Romero pitched the ninth for his fifth save.

Pirates rookie Braxton Ashcraft allowed one run on four hits and recorded five strikeouts in a career-best 5 2/3 innings before being replaced by Yohan Ramírez (1-2).

Iván Herrera lined a double to left field, scoring Lars Nootbaar to tie the game at 1 in the bottom of the third inning.

Tommy Pham lined his eighth home run of the season 440 feet over the left-field bullpen in the first inning to put Pittsburgh ahead 1-0.

Key moment

Masyn Winn was hit by a pitch from Ramírez to lead off the seventh and scored on Saggese’s double to the right-center field wall to put St. Louis ahead 2-1. Walker then hit the next pitch into the left-center field bleachers for his fifth home run of the season to extend the Cardinals’ lead to 4-1.

Key stat

Ashcraft is 1-0 with a 1.19 ERA over 19 innings in four starts since joining the starting rotation on Aug. 9 versus Cincinnati.

Up next

RHP Paul Skenes (8-9, 2.09 ERA) starts for the Pirates in the opener of a three-game series Friday night at Boston, which has not named a starter. Cardinals LHP Matthew Liberatore (6-11, 4.27) opposes RHP Zack Littell (9-8, 3.62) to open a three-game series in Cincinnati Friday night.