The Penn softball team proved once again that it can’t hang with nonconference opponents at the plate.
The Quakers were outscored 15-2 over the course of two blowouts yesterday against neighborhood rival Drexel. With the losses, the Quakers (13-20, 7-5 Ivy) fell to 5-17 against nonconference teams and have dropped six of their last seven games.
After a midseason run of six straight wins, Penn’s performance as of late has been lackluster.
Coach Leslie King refused to comment after the losses.
In the initial contest, Drexel ace sophomore Hillary Allen — who leads the team with a 1.97 earned run average — dominated on the mound, shutting out Penn in a crushing 7-0 defeat.
The Dragons got off to an early start, scoring three runs in the first inning off of sophomore pitcher Lindsay Mann.
Mann went three innings and gave up seven hits and five runs.
Penn’s stagnant offense has been the team’s biggest struggle all season. After holding the top place in their division, Penn has returned to their early season hitting problems.
Yesterday’s game marks the seventh shutout loss for the Quakers’ this season. Not only was Penn unable to plate a single run, but they also only managed to squeeze out three hits against Allen.
In the nightcap, the Quakers endured the same offensive struggles. Penn was unable to plate a single run until the final inning, when freshman Sam Erosa knocked in two runs with her RBI double.
Junior Taylor Tieman received the loss. Tieman, who had the team’s lowest ERA for a good part of the season, has struggled in recent outings.
Lately, Tieman has been repeatedly called out for throwing illegal pitches. Tieman was called for three illegal pitches in the nightcap yesterday.
“I’ve been moving my foot too much,” Tieman said. “I’m trying to adjust to what they call and see how far they’ll let me move it.”
Junior Kelsey Wolfe attributed yesterday’s poor performance to the team’s four-game series against Cornell last weekend, in which they lost three of four games and fell to second in the south division.
“It was very tough on us physically and mentally,” Wolfe said. “We struggled from bouncing back.”
Team captain junior Alisha Prystowsky believes that as the Quakers look to their series with Princeton this weekend, they will go “back to the basics”.
“We just need to move runners and produce hits.”
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