1994 IVY LEAGUE BASEBALL STANDINGS: Baseball stays in Gehrig race

Penn wins three this weekend The Penn baseball team's effort against Delaware Wednesday at Veterans Stadium could have been cause for some concern. But despite the Quakers' apparent lack of concentration and toughness in giving up six runs in the final two innings to lose 7-4, Penn coach Bob Seddon wasn't worried heading into the weekend's pair of Ivy League doubleheaders against Brown and defending Ivy champion Yale. "League games are the only ones that mean anything," he said. "If you're going to go anywhere as far as playoffs, you have to win your league. What you do in the middle of the week doesn't mean anything." The Quakers (12-6, 4-2 Ivy League) showed what they can do when it really counts Friday and Saturday, winning the first three games of the weekend before dropping the finale to Yale, 6-0. While Penn was dominated by Eli pitcher Adam Doherty in that game, the Quaker bats exploded for 24 runs through the first three contests. Big innings were pivotal in each of the wins, as Penn scored eight, five and six runs, respectively, in one inning in each of their victories. "It was just everybody getting a hit," Penn center fielder Sean Turner said. "A hit here, a walk there?.We need to get a bunch of hits and be more consistent throughout the game instead of leading up to one inning for all our hits. But if we do get it, that's fine." Nothing was finer than Penn's six run sixth inning Saturday against Yale (5-10, 10-3) that wiped out a four-run deficit and gave the Quakers their most important victory of the weekend, and probably of the season. Yale reliever Russell Peltz give up two walks, two singles and two doubles after he secured the first two outs with the Elis ahead 5-2. Senior outfielder Dave Goldberg climaxed the inning with a single that knocked in two runs and gave Penn its first lead. One more run gave Penn a 7-5 edge, with three outs to go for the victory. Junior starting pitcher Dan Galles wasn't pretty in wrapping up the win in the seventh, but he got the job done in what was more or less a microcosm of his performance throughout the entire game. Galles hit a batter, gave up a single and threw a wild pitch as Yale narrowed the margin to one. But he used his changeup to strike out two batters, including one for the final out with the tying run in scoring position. "[The changeup] worked really well," Galles said. "It's usually my best pitch, and today it was more effective than normal. It just kept them off balance." It was Galles, however, who appeared off balance in the game's early stages. In the top of the third, six men reached base safely as Yale scored four runs and took a 5-1 lead. But like fine wine, Galles got better with time, as Yale got just three hits after that third inning. Unlike Galles, Doherty was on his game through the entire seven innings of the second contest. The Quaker offense had been building into an irresistible force through the first three games, but it ran into an immovable object in the form of Doherty, who allowed just one hit and two walks for the game. Penn junior starter Lance Berger kept pace with Doherty through the first four innings, but in the fifth it was Yale which exploded for the big inning. The Elis made it 2-0 when Berger overthrew first base going for a pickoff attempt, the second time a Penn error had accounted for a Yale run. Soon Yale catcher Jacob Fournier, who had gotten on base via another error, was singled home. A two-run RBI then made the score 5-0, and the issue was decided. "Berger deserved a better fate," Penn assistant coach Bill Wagner said. "When your defense fails you, that just puts so much pressure back on your pitcher. Those errors really killed us, and their kid no-hit us for five innings. That was the difference in the ballgame." The difference Friday was the Penn bats, which guaranteed a better fate for the Quakers. Brown (1-11, 1-3) jumped out to a 4-2 lead in game one as Penn junior starter Ed Haughey struggled with a blister under his fingernail. Freshman A.B. Fischer relieved Haughey in the fifth and shut the Bears down the rest of the way. Changing the speed of his pitches effectively, Fischer struck out several Bears with slow curveballs. While Fischer took care of business on the mound, nearly every Penn batter contributed at the plate in the bottom of the sixth. Twelve Quakers batted, which actually only quadrupled the number of pitchers Brown had to use in the inning. Eight of those 12 got hits, and eight scored runs as Penn ran away with the 10-4 victory. "It was a good come-from-behind win," Seddon said. "We were down, but then we started to hit the ball?.We did a good job. It wasn't any one guy, it was a total team effort. That really catapulted us through the day." Indeed, the bottom of the first inning of the second game was almost a carbon copy of the eight-run explosion in game one. Brown pitcher Michael Milewski had barely gotten warmed up before the rout was on. Ten Quakers stepped to the plate and five runs scored on five hits. Junior first baseman Allen Fischer (3 for 6, 4 RBI Friday) accounted for three of those runs with a bases-loaded double to left-center that made the score 4-0. "[Milewski] just threw me the pitch I wanted," Allen Fischer said. "It was just one of those days. When the adrenaline's flowing through you like that, you feel like you're on top of the world." Penn freshman starter Alex Hayden looked for a while like he wouldn't need most of those runs, as he shut out the Bears through five innings. In the top of the sixth, however, Hayden's slider began to fail him. Brown catcher Dave Murphy blasted a home run to left. A walk and a base hit later, third baseman Matthew DeFusco hit a two-run base hit to narrow Penn's lead to 6-3. Junior closer Mike Martin relieved Hayden, and ended the sixth without further incident. Though Brown scored another run in the seventh, Martin was able to hold the Bears and give Penn the sweep. Just as satisfying as the victories was the performance of the Quakers' bullpen, as both Martin and A.B. Fischer looked impressive. "Martin came out and did his job," Wagner said. "He shut them down. He's the kid we've got earmarked for [closer]. A.B. Fischer's the guy we've got earmarked for middle relief. They both did their thing today." All the Quakers did their job in the first three games this weekend. And even though Penn finds itself tied for last place in the Gehrig Division despite its 4-2 league record, Seddon knows his team gave him everything it had. "I'm very happy," Seddon said. "We won three out of four. What am I going to do? You win three out of four every weekend, you'll win your division."