Softball to play four Ivy games

Quakers are lookingQuakers are lookingto end rough seasonQuakers are lookingto end rough seasonon a high note With the majority of the schedule behind them and the last games of season only a week away, the Penn softball team is resigned to a losing record this season. The Quakers (8-19, 1-3 Ivy League) are set to play five more doubleheaders. Do the math and it becomes clear that even if Penn goes on a season-ending 10-game winning streak, the Quakers can't end the spring of 1996 with a .500 record. But 18 wins would be a vast improvement over the 11 of last year. Yet even if Penn throws away the end of the season with a 10-game losing streak, the Quakers will at least still have something to be slightly happy about. Penn would finish the schedule with 29 losses. Granted, 29 is not a pretty number. But it is three less than 32, the infamous number of defeats the Quakers piled up only a year ago. Losing 10 games to end the season shouldn't be the case though, as Penn heads north for a weekend of Ivy League doubleheaders. First stop -- tomorrow at New Haven, Conn., where the Quakers visit Yale. The Elis (8-20, 4-2 Ivy League) are statistically comparable to Penn. Yale's combined batting average is .209. Jennifer Surface leads the Elis at .277, followed by Stefani Kirchhoff at .258. Surface also leads the Elis' pitching staff with a 2.04 ERA. Yale's combined ERA is 2.91 -- not very intimidating numbers to say the least. Sunday, Penn travels to Brown, and these Bears (10-8, 3-3 Ivy League) aren't much scarier. Brown's Marcie Deering is batting a cool .500 and is followed by Katie King with a .385 average. The Bears' team average is a solid .292. In addition, with only two pitchers, Brown has an unimpressive 3.21 ERA. The Quakers' numbers are floating around the same range as the Elis and Bears. Penn's combined batting average is .232, and its team ERA is 2.67. But the bats are warming up for some Penn players who began the season slowly. Sophomores Jen Stanwix and Kara Lecker and freshmen Arlen Katzen and Lauren Mishner have been driving the ball better the past few games than they did earlier this season. Quakers junior Vicki Moore, who has been absent from the field for the most part since she pulled her hamstring April 6 against Cornell, is good to go for the weekend. Both her bat and her pitching will be a great weapon for Penn to have back. Sophomore Jen Strawley will also be back in the lineup after leaving Wednesday's game because of nausea. Since the statistics are so similar between the Quakers and both Yale and Brown, placing bets on the weekend would be hard. "We're going up there hoping to come away with some wins," Strawley said. "[The team] is very optimistic and upbeat about our chances to grab some wins in the Ivy League." Four wins would definitely start the beginning of the end right for Penn.