BEAVER TOWNSHIP — The Curbstone Coaches kicked off their 68th season Monday with Ron Strollo, YSU vice-president for intercollegiate athletics serving as guest speaker at Avion Banquet Center.

The former football captain and offensive player of the year his senior campaign, and four-year letterwinner who was a member of the program’s first ever national championship team in 1991, is currently in his 30th year overall and 25th at the helm of the department.

Under his tutelage, he has guided the Penguins’ 21 men’s and women’s varsity teams to 77 Horizon League titles and 11 consecutive top-five finishes in the Horizon League’s yearly McCafferty Cup standings – they finished second last year, won the trophy in 2020-21 and 2022-23, finished among the top two in the standings in each of the past six seasons and were either tops or runner-up seven times over the past 12 years – emblematic of the conference’s top yearly athletic program.

Last winter, the Penguin women’s bowling team won the Division I national championship while head coach Doug Kuberski has led his keglers to three ‘Final Four’ tournament appearances over the past five seasons.

“Last year was a great year for many of our programs and I feel really good about where we are competitively with all of our programs,” Strollo told the group. “We just finished second overall in the McCafferty Cup standings, had an NCAA national championship in women’s bowling, which was the highlight of the year for everyone. I was so happy for the seven seniors on the team as it was fun to watch that program develop as quickly as they did at the Division I level.

“Our men’s basketball team made their first ever appearance in the Horizon League championship game while women’s tennis, men’s cross country, men’s indoor-outdoor and our women’s indoor-outdoor teams each won conference crowns.

“Facility-wise, last year was highlighted by the opening up of Beeghly Center with new seats so that part was really exciting because at that point, we were already several stages into our Beeghly Center project. In addition to seating, we also completed and installed a new sound system, scoreboard and have a new men’s locker room so there were some nice enhancements that were made.

“This year for Beeghly Center, we are building a club room that will be able to host those individuals who have seats on the court and that will be located in the North lobby. We signed a new contract with AVI to do our concessions and for those who have already been to our first two home football games, fans have noticed that we now have the ability to make available fried foods like French fries and chicken tenders.”

Under Strollo, YSU has been one of the strongest academic intercollegiate programs in the state.

“We have the second most student-athletes only to Ohio State and are always there at the top with our academic successes,” Strollo said. “We ended up with the highest grade point average overall of all of our student-athletes, which is most impressive. Women’s basketball was third-best overall in Division I with a 3.79 cumulative GPA while women’s golf (3.8787) was in the top 20, so academically, there was a lot for us to be proud and celebrate.

“Departmentally, the best grade point averages belonged to women’s golf (3.88) and men’s tennis (3.70) while we were No. 1 among Division I athletic departments in the state of Ohio with a 3.504 cumulative GPA. Madyson Marx and Kirsten Moore of our bowling team were named Academic All-Americans while we had the highest number of student-athletes (152) in department history last spring earning perfect 4.0 grade point averages.

“We led the Horizon League with 165 student-athletes on their academic honor roll, men’s and women’s tennis led the Horizon League with 17 Student-Athletes named to the ITA academic team with women’s volleyball (3.71 GPA) named an AVCA ‘Academic Team’ for the 12th consecutive year.”

Football is off to a 2-0 start with other fall sports also drawing Strollo’s attention as well.

“We are really excited about our new coaches,” Strollo added. “Rich Wall began his first season as head women’s soccer coach and we won our season opener to start a difficult stretch. Looking at that schedule, you will think we are crazy as we opened up at Indiana University, flew from Indiana to Texas Tech then flew to Missouri, came home and played St. Bonaventure then went back on the road and played at Kent State, St. John’s and this past Sunday, played at the University of Michigan.

“Our volleyball team, under second-year head coach Riley Jarrett, started their season by hosting a home tournament 10 days ago, won two of three outings then defeated St. Francis and Siena College this past weekend. Men’s and women’s cross country, and women’s lacrosse are in full swing with winter sports getting ready to take center stage before you know it.

“Last winter, we had two new head coaches in Ethan Faulkner for men’s basketball and Melissa Jackson for women’s basketball. We believe both teams will be ranked either one, two or three in the pre-season league polls. The men are coming off six straight winning seasons and have a string of three consecutive 20-win seasons, so there are lofty expectations entering this fall for both programs. To be quite honest, prior to last season we were pleased that both basketball coaches were available to us and we are fortunate to have them leading our programs. Women’s basketball had some unfortunate injuries with some freshmen last year, which forced us to play West Branch standout Sophia Gregory, who responded by being named Horizon League ‘Freshman of the Year.’ Plus, swimming and diving and indoor track and field are getting ready for their seasons.”

Next week, longtime local official and referee Tony Montana will serve as guest speaker.