Penn pulls out win in ninth inning

With important hits just in the nick of time, senior Hilary Stamos saved the day for the Penn softball team. Stamos led a come-from-behind 5-4 victory in the second game of a doubleheader with Lehigh Wednesday after the Quakers dropped the first game 3-2. Penn (4-9) trailed in the seventh inning until a hit by Stamos tied the game at 4 and sent it into extra innings. Stamos's next big play came as she stepped to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and a runner on second. With the stage set and the team depending on her to pull out a victory, Stamos hit a spectacular double to drive in the winning run for the Quakers. The enthusiastic cheers and support of the bench marked the excitement of the win. "It was a good hit at the right time," Stamos said. "You can only lose so much before you start fighting to come back." Coming from behind seems to be the Quaker style this year -- the team has split its last two doubleheaders and has repeatedly used the first game as a prep for victory. "It's frustrating, our team plays the same every game," Stamos said. "It seems to be a Penn tradition. It always takes us a game or so to get warmed up." In the first game, the loss could be attributed to several errors, weak hitting and the inability of the Quakers to capitalize with runners on base. The Quakers used nearly their entire pitching staff to complete the defensive effort. "The name of the game is to put the ball in play and force somebody to make an error," Penn coach Linda Carothers said. "Unfortunately for us, that's just what they did." The Quakers did not have the firepower to come back with strong hitting after the Engineers took the lead. "We just weren't hitting," junior co-captain Dawn Kulp said. "But yesterday was a good sign that we are able to keep together at the end." The second game was an entirely different story as the Quakers took an early lead, only to suddenly find themselves trailing late in the contest. However, they came back and freshman Melanie Bolt was given the win on the mound. "We were ahead, but we got complacent and they caught up," Carothers said. "We were the rabbit early on, but we became the dogs. You don't want to be the dog chasing the rabbit?.We came from behind and showed a lot of character." The Quakers' goal is to establish more long-run consistency, from the practice field to the playing field as the 11 freshmen find their niche and the team plays more tenaciously. "Maybe we need to be more aggressive," Carothers said. "We worked [Lehigh's] pitcher. It was a good sign. We were really making them throw a lot of pitches."