Baseball kicks off Ivy season against Lions

Penn looks to repeat last year's four-game sweep of Ivy rival Columbia. Now the real fun begins for the Penn baseball team. After spring break in California and three games this week, the Quakers finally start their Ivy League schedule and their quest to rise in the Gehrig Division standings. To start, Penn (3-9, 0-0 Ivy League) plays last year's Gehrig Division cellar-dweller Columbia (4-6, 0-0) in a home-and-home doubleheader this weekend in the Ivy League's first games of '99. The Quakers host the first twinbill, set to start at noon tomorrow at Bower Field. Then the series will head up to the Big Apple, where games three and four will take place on Columbia's Coakley Field. Last year, in a series marred by a near-brawl after the conclusion of the last game at Bower, Penn handled the Lions with relative ease. In the four games, Penn outscored Columbia, 49-10. But Penn will be hard-pressed to find many similarities between this year's series and last. Like the Quakers, Columbia has lost much of last year's lineup to graduation. Columbia touts 19 freshmen and sophomores on its 28-man roster, one more than Penn. The Quakers batting order lacks much of last year's power and Columbia's pitching staff -- under first-year head coach Mik Aoki, a former Dartmouth assistant -- is holding opponents to under five runs a game. Columbia boasts two impressive lefties in its rotation, seniors Dan Gati -- "a junkballer," according to Penn coach Bob Seddon -- and Dan Brunello, this week's Ivy League Pitcher of the Week. In 16 innings of work, Gati -- who is slated to pitch against the Quakers tomorrow -- has posted a 2.25 ERA, giving up only four earned runs in three appearances all season. Brunello has been nothing short of dominant thus far. After 17 innings pitched, he still has a perfect 0.00 ERA and a 1-0 record. Opponents are batting a measly .111 against the southpaw, who the Quakers will see on Sunday. Brunello has struck out 12 on the year and took a no-hit bid into the seventh inning against William Patterson. "Good pitching is going to stop any kind of good hitting," Seddon said. "So if Gati is effective we'll have trouble." But despite Gati and Brunello's early-season success, Seddon is confident that his team can hit them. "I don't see how Columbia's pitching should dominate our hitters," Seddon said. "If they do, I'll be very disappointed." But as good as Columbia's pitching has been, the Lions' bats have not exactly been lighting up opposing pitchers. The Lions are batting only .218 as a team and have scored just 32 runs in 10 games. Columbia's most productive hitter has actually been a freshman, catcher Matt Buckmiller, who leads the Lions in home runs, runs batted in, total bases, slugging percentage and batting average. That spells bad news for the Lions batting order as Penn's pitching staff has grown more effective since the spring break trip. Freshman pitcher Mike Mattern picked up two victories this week, to bring his record to 3-0 -- the only three Quakers wins this season. Freshmen Mark Lacerenza and Will Clark also put in solid innings this week, with Clark taking the loss against St. Joseph's. Although Seddon and pitching coach Bill Wagner have not announced which pitchers will start this weekend, Seddon said that three freshmen pitchers -- Mattern, Clark and Lacerenza -- will probably see significant action. Sophomore Matt Hepler and senior Sean McDonald also figure to see action against Columbia. "Our staff is a better pitching staff than last year but they're not going to shut everybody out," Seddon said. "It's not that kind of pitching staff --you've got to score for them." With that in mind, Seddon has made some adjustments in the lineup heading into the weekend. Catcher Ralph Vasami, who has played behind Jeff Gregorio for most of the year, will get the nod at designated hitter. In leftfield, juniors Kevin McCabe and Jeremy McDowell will split time. The lefty McCabe will get the start against Columbia's righty pitchers, while McDowell -- a righty -- will start in left when Gati and Brunello take the mound for Columbia.

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