Quakers win two of four Ivy contests

Penn fell behind in first threePenn fell behind in first threegames, but still managedPenn fell behind in first threegames, but still managedone come-from-behind win Jim Harbaugh of the Indianapolis Colts is the Comeback Kid for his late-game heroics. In three of the four games this weekend, it looked like the Penn baseball team was trying to prove it was worthy of the same title. In the first of two cross-division Ivy League doubleheaders, the Quakers fell behind by six runs in both games against Yale on Friday. On Saturday, Brown jumped out to an early 4-0 lead over Penn in the first game of a twin bill. The Red and Blue, however, salvaged the first game against Yale, winning, 11-10, on a game-winning RBI single by Mike Shannon in the bottom of the seventh inning, before losing the second game, 8-5. And after Quakers third baseman Derek Nemeth swung and missed to end a comeback rally in the bottom of the seventh, Penn dropped the first game to the Bears, 6-5. Quakers sophomore A.B. Fischer salvaged a split of the weekend, however, by taking a perfect game into the sixth inning, as Penn beat Brown in the second game, 6-2. But after getting off to slow starts in three of the four contests, the Penn coaches are beginning to get concerned about falling behind early. "We need batters to hit and back up our pitchers," Quakers first base coach John Nace said. "I thought we should have won both games [against Yale], but one or two bad innings and some unearned runs put us down." Those two bad innings of the first game came right off the bat against the Elis, as the Red and Blue gave up six runs in the opening two frames, before adding one more in the third. But in the bottom of the third inning, Penn looked as if it was taking batting practice, racking up seven hits, including two doubles, which led to six runs. The drama came in the seventh inning as the Elis rallied for three more runs to tie the game at 10. In the bottom of the inning, Yale pitcher Eric Gutshall walked the bases loaded. With one out, 1995 third-team All-American Mike Shannon came to the plate and drove the ball into the right-center gap to drive in the winning run. In the second game, the Quakers also were down -- this time by eight runs in the fourth inning. Although Penn looked like it might make a comeback -- scoring five runs in the middle two innings. But that was all the Quakers could produce. "Our hitting has come up big when it's had to," Fischer said. "There's some situations when we didn't get the hit when we needed to. There's others when we did." Saturday's doubleheader against Brown was a little surprising. Although Penn knew Brown was much improved since the 1995 season, there was some speculation that the Bears had gotten some advance scouting from Columbia, which was swept in a four-game series by the Quakers last weekend. "Brown was shifting on our batters," Fischer said. "Columbia might have stabbed us in the back." After taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning, the Quakers once again saw one inning of troubles. Aided by two Penn errors and three walks in the fifth inning, Brown batted around and scored six runs to take the lead. With two runs in the sixth, the Red and Blue once again had to attempt a seventh inning miracle. Brown helped out a bit by walking the first two batters, who both advanced on a wild pitch. On a sacrifice bunt by Sean Turner, who went 7-12 for the weekend, Shannon scored and Mark DeRosa advanced to third. After Mark Nagata grounded out to second base, Nemeth stepped up to try to tie the game. And he struck out swinging. After the Bears tallied that big win, Fischer silenced Brown for five innings in game two, as the Quakers managed the weekend split. "We expected to win at least two games," Fischer said. "We wanted a sweep -- that didn't happen -- but [Friday] every team in the league split, so we didn't lose any ground. We tried to win two games [against Brown], but hopefully other teams in the division lost, so it doesn't make any difference." With a 7-3 Ivy League record at this point, the Quakers will still have to prove that they're worthy for at least the Gehrig Division pennant. "We learned from ourselves this weekend that after going 4-0 [against Columbia], we can't expect everyone to roll over," Nagata said.