Baseball searchin g for revenge

The first weekend of April 1993 was when the world came crashing down for the Penn baseball team. It was a weekend that saw a season of promise become a season of heartbreak. The Quakers entered home doubleheaders against Dartmouth and Harvard riding high with a 3-1 Ivy League record. They left in the depths of despair, having dropped all four within the supposedly friendly confines of Bower Field to effectively eliminate themselves from the Ivy title race. Now it is one year later and many things have changed as Penn (12-6, 4-2 Ivy League) prepares to journey to New England for doubleheaders against the Big Green tomorrow and Crimson Sunday. Both Dartmouth and Harvard have lost several key players to graduation, and both struggled last weekend in their first dose of league competition. The Quakers, meanwhile, feel they are a much-improved team in 1994. Still, too many things have stayed the same for Penn coach Bob Seddon not to be nervous as the weekend approaches. Penn once again enters the weekend with a solid Ivy standing. Despite its miserable record, Dartmouth (2-10, 0-4) remains a team with enough solid pitching and has a chance in any game. Mike Tallman dominated Penn last year in a 6-0 Big Green victory, and should be on the mound against the Quakers this time around in neutral Cape Cod. (Dartmouth's home field is still recovering from the New England snowstorms.) "We had trouble with Tallman last year," Seddon said. "We always just seem to have a lot of trouble beating Dartmouth. I don't know what it is. They always have some players." That may be, but Dartmouth's poor record this season is testament to the youth on its roster. Four of the Big Green's starting nine position players were lost to graduation, and Todd Senekar, the team's top returning player, is off to a miserable start with a .219 batting average and only one extra base hit. Hoping to capitalize on Dartmouth's inexperienced lineup will be Penn junior starting pitchers Dan Galles and Lance Berger, who both had rough outings last Saturday against Yale. While Galles struggled through the first four innings only to come back in the latter stages and claim the win, Berger couldn't overcome a fifth inning in which he gave up five runs on the way to a 6-0 loss. "I'm just looking to go out and pitch my game," Berger said. "Every weekend you need to go in with a positive attitude. I'll get a really good idea about what I need to do to pitch well beforehand when I watch [Galles] pitch in the first game. It's something I'm looking forward to." In all probability, the weekend's tougher task will fall on junior starter Ed Haughey and whomever Seddon and assistant coach Jim Wagner select to pitch in the second game against Harvard (4-6, 1-3). While the Crimson's lineup is not laced with powerhouse hitters, it does feature one of the very best offensive players in the Ivies in Mike Giardi. Giardi, a senior who doubled as quarterback of the Harvard football team in his spare time, almost singlehandedly dealt the Quakers two defeats last year, going 5 of 8 with clutch hits in each game. This year he is hitting over .500 through the Crimson's first 10 contests. "Giardi's a good athlete and a good player," Seddon said. "I just think he's a kid you don't want to let beat you, because I don't know how many bats he has around him." Regardless of how much strength the Harvard hitters lack overall, the Penn pitchers have question marks of their own. Haughey struggled last weekend against Brown with a blister on his finger from which he is only just recovering. Meanwhile, the Penn coaches haven't settled on a starter for game two. The candidates are freshman Alex Hayden, who looked impressive against Brown before faltering late, and sophomore Mike Shannon. The Harvard pitching staff features a baseball rarity -- a switchhanded pitcher. Jamie Irving may see action with one arm tomorrow against Columbia, and Sunday with the other versus Penn. If the Quakers weren't familiar with him from the feature Sports Illustrated did on him last year, they know him well enough now. Irving shut Penn down in game one of the doubleheader last season using his right arm. Which arm Penn will be facing this time around is not the most important question it wants answered from a hitting standpoint this weekend. The Quakers should have the edge in talent over both teams, but if they are to utilize that advantage they will need to be more consistent from the plate. Seddon is concerned with the erratic nature of the Penn bats. "We just have to try to put everything together if we can," he said. "We can't just get six runs in one inning and then wait five to get another hit. We've been sporadic all year. And to be honest with you, we're fortunate in some ways to have 12 wins considering we're sporadic." Nothing would do more to dispel both the Quakers' label of inconsistency as well as the demons of 1993 than a four-game sweep. And while that's a lot to ask for on the road, Penn feels it's owed a few. "We should crush them," first baseman Allen Fischer said. "After what happened last year, we're looking to take four of four. If we don't take at least three of four we'll be very disappointed."