Penn to face Navy aces before playing West Chester

Penn's Mike Greenwood and Armen Simonian will throw in Annapolis, before the baseball team heads to West Chester. The Penn baseball team will treat this weekend's two doubleheaders against Navy and West Chester as another chance for improvement before the start of the Ivy League season. "Basically, we're trying to get ready for [the Ivy League opener against Columbia] next weekend," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. Beginning at noon tomorrow, the Quakers play the first two games of the weekend at Navy's Max Bishop Stadium. Penn should have a comfortable stay in the facilities at Annapolis. This will be the Quakers first visit since the Midshipmen completed a new $1 million clubhouse in 1995. Seddon will start senior left-hander Mike Greenwood in the first game, and junior Armen Simonian will start the second game. Greenwood is 1-2 thus far with a 9.00 earned run average. Simonian has a 1-1 record with a 4.97 ERA. Neither their records nor their ERAs, however, accurately reflect their skill. Both faced powerful opponents in the Pepsi/Johnny Quick Classic in Fresno, Calif. "Our stats are deceiving because of the competition we played in the beginning of the season," said senior pitcher A.B. Fischer (1-0, 3.68 ERA), who will start one of Sunday's games against West Chester. Ray Broome (0-1, 4.50), a left-handed sophomore, will start the other Sunday game against the Rams. The Quakers hope to improve their 4-6 record against the Midshipmen (4-15) and the Rams (1-8), who have also struggled this year. Navy, like Penn, has faced very tough competition -- mostly from the top conference teams on the East Coast. They are coming off of a 6-4 win over Connecticut. "Navy is definitely the stronger of the two teams. West Chester's been struggling. Navy has too, but they've been playing a monster schedule," Seddon said. "Even though their record is 3-15, I pay no attention to it, because they've been playing all top teams. They've been playing a really good schedule." Seddon expects Navy to send its two best pitchers against his squad. Leading the Midshipmen rotation are two senior right-handers, Kevin Carlson (3-2, 2.90) and Tom McLemore, (0-7, 6.69). "They're both good. Carlton's got three wins. The other kid hasn't won a game, but he's supposed to be their best pitcher," Seddon said. The Quakers, who stand just two games under .500, realize that both Navy and West Chester are just as unhappy about their own losing records, and they will be looking to turn their seasons around this weekend. "We played Navy my freshman year. We can't let their record fool us," Fischer said. "We can't sit back and relax against Navy. They've had quality programs in the past, and they're obviously not going to go out there and continue a record like that." Penn, which scored just two runs on Wednesday against St. Joseph's, despite nine hits, will focus on putting hits together to create more runs. As a team, the Quakers are hitting just .236 and have scored just six runs in the past four games. With the more even competition, Penn expects this trend to change. "Our pitching is starting to come around. The more times we're out there, the better we get," Fischer said. "The most important thing for us to do is to get ahead early. We've been having trouble? scoring runs in the early innings." He added that if the team can "bunch together some hits," the scoring should take care of itself. Penn also knows that they can't overlook West Chester. Last year, the Rams beat the Quakers, 12-3. "They always play well against us. We didn't play well [last year]," Seddon said. "They weren't bad." "We have to go out there with some toughness and want to just kill them," Fischer said. "We haven't really had that attitude yet." With some victories this weekend, Seddon thinks that the team will approach the Ivy League season with a stronger attitude. "We really have to get moving forward and start streaking on our record because mentally that helps you a lot," he said.