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Connor Cuff pitched six strong innings for the Red and Blue on Sunday.

NORFOLK, VA. – Here is a list of things I learned in my trip to Norfolk, Va.:

Virginia – like Pennsylvania – is technically a commonwealth. There is something called the Delmarva Peninsula consisting of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge takes, like, a really long time to drive across.

And Penn baseball lost its first game in a Sunday doubleheader against Old Dominion, 5-1.

The Quakers sent star pitcher Connor Cuff to the mound, but in the early stages of the game, he was unusually wild. He even seemed to be struggling with his command in his warmup tosses in-between innings.

“The mound was feeling different than I’m used to,” he said. “Today I didn’t have my breaking stuff as much as I wanted to.”

The Monarchs took advantage of his early struggles and touched him up for a run in the bottom of the second after a brief rally at the dish.

However, as the game went on, Cuff seemed to settle in and gain better control of his arsenal. He battled hard and kept the Monarchs to only that one run through six innings.

But the Quakers bats simply weren’t clicking. The Red and Blue failed to make consistently solid contact with the ball and quite frankly did not threaten often throughout the contest.

“From a hitting standpoint, we want to be a little more patient,” Cuff noted.

Penn’s only run of the ball game came in its middle stages, as centerfielder Gary Tesch smashed a ball in the gap and used his wheels to leg out a triple. Catcher Austin Bossart would go on to knock him in with an infield single.

Ultimately, though, the Red and Blue pitching staff could not compensate for Penn’s inefficacy at the plate. Cuff allowed one base runner in the sixth and was promptly pulled by coach John Yurkow. The Monarchs would go on to notch four runs that inning, making quick work of relief pitcher Stephen Silvestri’s offerings.

The Quakers will look to turn things around in game two of the doubleheader, but according to Cuff, the results of the game may not be all that relevant.

“We wanna win these games, but these are just touch-ups really,” he said.

So I guess there isn’t much more for me to learn from my trip to Virginia, as it pertains to Penn baseball. At least I still have the Delmarva Peninsula.

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