Baseball golden in tuneup against Rams

To a man, the Penn baseball team says the lofty expectations it has for the 1995 season cannot be met unless the Quakers recover from their slow start offensively. Therein lies the value of early season games against lowly opponents like West Chester. They give Penn a chance to get into a groove offensively and carry that momentum into more significant contests such as those against Ivy League rivals Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend. Penn took full advantage of this opportunity Tuesday at West Chester, using a seven-run second inning to drub the Golden Rams 16-5. Armen Simonian is only a freshman, but he gave a career performance after getting the start at left field.. He went 5 for 5 at the plate, with a double, a triple and two RBIs, to pace a red-hot Penn team that got 19 hits off three West Chester pitchers. "We've now got three guys -- Armen, [designated hitter] Mike Shannon and [center fielder] Tim Henwood -- hitting really consistently," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "If we can get a fourth or fifth guy hitting that well, we will be tough to beat." Tuesday's game was certainly a step in that direction, as 11 of the 13 Penn position players got a hit and nine crossed the plate at least once. The Quakers were whacking the ball early and often. Golden Rams pitcher Bill Kane was pulled with two out in the second inning after allowing eight hits and eight runs, six of which were earned. Penn never hit a home run and only racked up four extra base hits. But it had singles aplenty, and that was more than enough to get the job done in the second inning, when the Quakers scored seven runs to blow the game open. Simonian did get a triple that knocked in two runs to ignite the spurt. A crucial error by West Chester's Shane Kenney didn't help Kane's cause any. Quakers pitcher Lance Berger pitched four innings and left with his first victory of the season. Seddon hoped Berger (1-2), who had gotten the least work of the four starters, would get a chance to see some quality action and find a rhythm heading into this weekend's Ivy contests. Berger walked seven and struck out four before giving up two runs and leaving after the fourth. "He was fair. His control was a little bit off," Seddon said. "He struggled a bit. We were up and he was doing some experimenting, but I think he would have liked to have been sharper." In a game in which the pitching was not much of a factor either way, the performance of Penn reliever A B Fischer stood out. Down 8-2 with two out in the fifth, West Chester loaded the bases against Fischer with a walk, a hit and an error and was threatening to make a game of it. But Fischer got the last out to escape unscathed. "He got us out of a hole when a base hit could have changed the complexion of the game," Seddon said. The Golden Rams (3-8) are still trying to find themselves under new coach Jack Hopkins and were simply overmatched from the start. That and the fact the Quakers are banged up right now meant it was a prime chance for Penn to play virtually its entire roster. In addition to Simonian's heroics, freshman David Corleto filled in at catcher for Rick Burt, still recovering from a hamstring injury, and got a key RBI in Penn's five-run sixth inning that settled the issue once and for all. Freshman infielder Joe Carlon also chipped in with one hit and two runs. "We've developed nice depth," Seddon said. "We made some mistakes in the field but we were able to overcome that because we got solid performances from a lot of different guys." It must have done Seddon good to see those performances, because Penn's starters are hurting. In addition to Burt, Sean Turner, Penn's best runner and one of its top hitters, is suffering from a bruised heal and played only two innings Tuesday. Seddon said he is questionable for this weekend's games. Shortstop Mark DeRosa has a sore shoulder and missed Tuesday's game because he was taking an exam. He should be able to play this weekend.

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