Baseball stays in race

There wasn't any blood to speak of during the four-game Penn-Princeton war they called a baseball series Saturday and Sunday, but there was sweat and tears aplenty. The weekend seemed to last an eternity, but when it finally drew to a close, the Quakers had taken three of four games to place themselves atop the Gehrig Division standings and vanquish the Tigers from title contention. Penn (20-10-1, 12-6 Ivy League) is tied for the division lead with Columbia (16-18, 12-6), which swept four games from Cornell this weekend. The Quakers host the Lions for a doubleheader this Saturday that will decide the Gehrig championship. But Penn can worry about Columbia later. For now, it is basking in the glow of three clutch performances, particularly the two that came Sunday when it seemed Princeton (16-15, 8-8) had momentum in its corner following a dramatic 5-4 victory over the Quakers in the second game Saturday. "We were down both games [Sunday], but we never gave up," Penn first baseman Allen Fischer said. "We showed a lot of guts?.That's the way baseball is supposed to be played." In the seventh inning of that second game Saturday, it appeared Penn was headed for an opening day sweep. Sophomore Mike Shannon's two-run home run in the first inning of game one was the beginning of a long day for Tiger pitcher Matt Golden (1-5), who gave up seven earned runs and 11 hits in four and one-third innings. Golden's departure from the game came too late for the Tigers, as Penn breezed home for a 9-5 victory and junior starter Ed Haughey's fifth win to no losses. Shannon continued his heroics for a while in Saturday's nightcap, this time from the mound. He took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the seventh, but then an error and a hit put two men on with one out and Chris Samway at the plate. Shannon (1-1) hung an 0-1 curveball to Samway, who wrapped it around the left field foul pole to end the game. "That was a nightmare," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "That's when our job is biggest as coaches, to help them rebound from something like that. We showed character the way we came back [Sunday]." Samway's dramatics turned out to be just the calm before the storm. Twice on Sunday Princeton had leads before faltering. The opener went into extra innings tied 1-1, thanks to dominant pitching performances by Penn's Dan Galles and Princeton's Dave Kahney. It was a duel of endurance that went to the wire, and Galles (6-2) emerged victorious. He allowed no earned runs through the entire nine innings, while Kahney (3-5) lost a 1-0 lead in the seventh and gave up four runs in the top of the ninth to take the defeat. Junior Sean Turner knocked in two runs in the ninth with a triple, and Shannon rebounded from Saturday's heartbreak with his second two-run homer of the series to seal the 5-1 win for the Quakers. The talk of the game, however, was Galles. "He was super. To pitch as well as he did for nine innings is just outstanding," Seddon said. "He just shut them down entirely. That's two excellent performances in a row he's given us." The nightcap saw Princeton take the early lead again, but Penn simply would not be denied. The Tigers scored one run in each of the first two innings off junior Lance Berger (4-1), but the Quakers rebounded for five in the next three innings. It was a total team effort, with five different Penn players knocking in each of the runs. But you just knew the weekend couldn't conclude without more dramatics. Princeton narrowed the lead to 5-4 in the sixth, with runners on first and third and one out. Kahney, hoping for better luck at the plate than he had on the mound earlier, drilled a line drive to left. Backup outfielder Tim Henwood caught it and hurled the ball toward home as Tiger pinch runner Eric Smallwood tagged up and headed for the plate. Smallwood was out, and Princeton was done. Berger got the win and Mike Martin his third save to conclude a very gratifying series for the Quakers. "We wanted to win at least three games, and we did," Seddon said. "We executed well in all phases -- bunting, stolen bases, defense. Everyone contributed. We worked hard, and it's nice that now we've put ourselves in a position to play for something." That something is the Gehrig Division title, which will be on the line Saturday in the Penn-Columbia doubleheader that gets underway at noon at Bower Field. If one team can win both games, it will be the division champs. Seddon was unsure what would happen in case of a split. The likeliest scenario is a one-game playoff at a neutral site. Penn isn't thinking about a split. The Quakers will send Haughey and Galles, their top two pitchers, to the mound in hopes of silencing the explosive Columbia bats. On the other side, Lions hurler Steve Ceterko will try to repeat his domination of Penn in a 4-1 Columbia victory in a March doubleheader the teams split. "He throws hard, but I think we're better off facing someone who throws hard," Seddon said. "Columbia is playing very well, but so is Penn. We will be ready, you can be sure of that."

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