Softball goes 1-3, Kashow unhappy

After splitting with Delaware Saturday, the Penn softball team dropped a pair Sunday. The Penn women's softball team is full of fighters. The Quakers take defeat badly, doing their best to resist any type of repeat disappointment. On Saturday, Penn traveled to Delaware for a doubleheader against the Fightin' Blue Hens. Delaware defeated Penn in the first game 4-0, but the Red and Blue battled back to win the second, 3-1, in extra innings. Penn sophomore Suzanne Arbogast led the Quakers on the rubber for the entire second game. Penn nevertheless trailed by one heading into the top of the seventh inning. With two outs and a runner on second, freshman Sarah Dominic singled home the tying run, sending the game into extra innings. At the top of eighth, Penn managed to load the bases, and with a little help from the Delaware defense, scored two runs. The Fightin' Blue Hens came out strong in the bottom of the eighth, but Penn shut them down one, two, three. "They were just an out away from a win and we took that second game from them," Penn coach Carol Kashow said. "And again [Saturday], coming back to win that second game was another step in the right direction for us." Sunday, though, after a crushing 18-2 loss to Rider, the Quakers tried to come back strong in the second game. But this time, it was a poor Penn defensive effort that helped the Broncs earn a 6-2 win. Penn managed to keep their first game tied at 1-1 until the third inning, when Rider suddenly remembered what to do at the plate. From there on, the Broncs began to give the Penn outfield a workout -- including a few doubles that rolled to the fence and a booming homerun to leftfield. "They did a nice job of hitting the ball," Kashow said. "And the outfielders did a nice job of getting it in and hitting their cut people. There is not a whole lot you can do to defend solid, legitimate hits." This hitting streak lasted for the Broncs all the way to the sixth inning when the game was ended by the NCAA "mercy rule." "Hitting is a real contagious kind of thing," Kashow said. "When nobody is hitting, nobody is hitting. And then when it gets going, and then you get a couple people up at the plate and they look like they are having fun, then all of a sudden it gets kind of fun to be in the batter's box." Arbogast started the first game against Rider, but after pitching eight pressure innings against Delaware Saturday, the sophomore was relieved after three innings by senior Jen Strawley. Strawley, the lone senior on the team, pitched the next two innings before Kashow reinserted Arbogast onto the mound. In both Rider games, especially the second, Penn managed to make contact with the ball. But the Quakers had a hard time translating that into base runners due to pop-ups and a strong defense on the Broncs' side. In the second game, the Quakers started out in control, coming out with an early 2-0 lead. But Rider was soon to catch up and tie the score at two in the fourth. Kashow was pleased with her team's start, but thought they lost some aggressiveness as the game progressed. The Quakers stumbled and lost their edge, allowing the Broncs three unearned runs. "Not only did they get three runs, but they did not get any hits," Kashow continued. "It was like a walk, and a drop on a sacrifice bunt and then they got a legitimate sacrifice bunt, then we had a wild pitch and a pass ball by the catcher. We really did not protect the ball in that inning and without any hits and without the ball leaving the infield they managed to score three runs." It is this type of play that really worries Kashow. She is hoping that the aggressiveness that she saw at the plate will translate to her defense and strengthen it. "That type of play was a bit more disappointing to me then the even the 'L'," Kashow concluded. "Because the 'W's and the 'L's will take care of themselves if we play the aggressive kind of ball that we have been playing -- a strong defense, the aggressive defense and the aggressive offense." But the Quakers defense is still yet to emerge.