Baseball swept by Big Red at Bower

In a makeup of two rained out games the baseball team dropped two to visiting Cornell. These two had to hurt. The Penn baseball team let the last two games of its series with Gehrig Division rival Cornell slip away yesterday at Bower Field. The first loss, an 8-6 letdown in extra innings, and the second, a 9-8 heartbreaker, seriously darken Penn's hopes for a trip to the postseason. Yesterday's two losses make things difficult for Penn's playoff bid. The Quakers are behind both Princeton (8-4) and Cornell in the Gehrig Division standings. A variety of scenarios, all involving at least three wins out of four at Princeton over the weekend, could put Penn in the postseason -- a place the Quakers seniors have not been for three years. It wasn't that the Quakers (12-17-1, 8-8 Ivy League) were outplayed. In fact, they had numerous opportunities to win both games against the Big Red (12-13-1, 7-5). But the Quakers could not get the hits in crucial situations with runners on base. The back end of the doubleheader saw the Quakers squander two bases-loaded opportunities after falling behind early. The bats were needed as sophomore starting pitcher Anthony Napolitano gave up five earned runs in the third inning --Eall with two outs. Napolitano retired the first two hitters easily in the third, but then the hits just kept on coming. Two singles, a walk, a two-RBI single, a two-RBI double and a run-scoring wild pitch led to Cornell taking a 6-0 lead. Meanwhile, Cornell starter John Douglas pitched four quality innings, giving up only solo home runs to DH Mark Nagata and first baseman Russ Farscht. In the fifth, however, Douglas started to tire, and Penn made a run. With the bases loaded and no outs, right fielder Armen Simonian sacrifice flied to center. Farscht, next up to the plate, added an RBI single, but that was all the Quakers could muster. The sixth inning brought more chances for the Red and Blue. Again the bases were loaded with nobody out. This time second baseman Joe Carlon grounded into a double play, scoring one. Another run was added on a wild pitch, but still the Quakers could not summon their characteristic offensive prowess to break open the game. Down 9-6 going into the last half of the seventh inning, Penn had one last charge left. After Jeremy McDowell singled, catcher Dave Corleto crushed a massive homer over the Bower Field scoreboard. James Mullen then drew a walk. That's when the fireworks began. The home plate umpire missed what appeared to be a balk on Cornell pitcher Nick Leopardi's pickoff attempt at first. The non-call drew much criticism from Penn players, coaches and fans. Senior centerfielder Drew Corradini hit a grounder to shortstop Bill Walkenbach, who flipped it to second baseman John Mills for the force. Mills could not make the pivot in time to catch the speeding Corradini at first. The home plate umpire, however, called Corradini out because he felt Mullen's slide into second was intended to take out the second baseman. The interference call effectively stopped Penn's momentum and ended its run. "We had a bit more of an aggressive approach at the plate," Cornell coach Tom Ford said of his team, which scored 17 runs yesterday as opposed to four Saturday. As for the questionable umpiring? "Who knows? I thought that was a decent call [for interference], but obviously they could have not called it," Ford said. "It takes a lot to call." The umpires calls weren't the only unholy acts of the day. Penn coach Bob Seddon called the first loss "a sin." The Quakers took an early 3-2 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning off Corradini's two-run single. Shortstop Glen Ambrosius, who went 3-4 with two RBIs in the first game, later knocked Corradini in with a base hit. Holding on to a precarious 5-4 lead in the top half of the seventh, Penn closer Travis Arbogast came in for the save but ran into trouble. First he hit Cornell batter Flint Foley, for whom Michael Macrie pinch-ran. Then batter John Douglas reached first on an error by Arbogast and advanced to second, with Macrie scoring in the meantime. Macrie's run sent the game into extra innings. In the top of the ninth inning, after Cornell's Mike Nemeth reached base on an Ambrosius error, Douglas was hit by a pitch and John Osgood walked. With the bases now loaded, Arbogast hit Doug Pritts, driving in an unearned run. Craig Mauro singled off new pitcher John Dolan to drive in Cornell's final two runs. The Quakers added a run in the bottom half of the inning, but it was too little, too late as they fell 8-6.

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