Baseball falls twice to both Harvard and Dartmouth

Penn could not hold on after scoring 10 runs in one inning to take the lead from the Crimson. Where can the Penn baseball team go from here? The Quakers came close to victory several times this weekend at Bower Field but ended up dropping a pair of doubleheaders to Ivy foes Harvard, 18-16 and 6-0, and Dartmouth, 5-2 and 5-3. Penn (5-17, 2-6 Ivy League) is currently mired in a seven-game funk from which it cannot seem to emerge. "We don't know how to close," Penn coach Bob Seddon said after the Dartmouth twinbill. "We get right to the brink but right now we have to learn how to win. We have to be able to rise to the occasion when the game is on the line." Two innings into the first game of Friday's twinbill with Harvard (10-7, 4-0), it did not look as if Penn had to worry about its play when the game was on the line. The Quakers' third pitcher was already in the game, Harvard was up 12-0 and it looked like the home team was destined for a big loss to the defending Ivy Champs. But after scratching out runs in the third and fourth frames, and heading into the sixth down 13-6, Penn struck -- unbelievably hard. With the bases full, Quakers senior Russ Farscht hit his second home run of 1999 to cut the Crimson lead to 13-10. Five batters later, junior Kevin McCabe smacked the second grand slam of the inning to give Penn a 15-13 lead. McCabe's home run -- just his second career blast -- elicited resounding cheers from his father, his friends and numerous other Penn fans in attendance and forced more than one fan to pay up on bets and buy dinner for friends. For good measure, junior Jeff Gregorio followed with Penn's third home run of the inning to deep left-center. The team suddenly found itself up 16-13, just three outs from claiming a huge victory. Unfortunately, the Quakers could not hold this lead. Seddon attributed it to "inexperience," while Penn pitcher Matt Hepler pointed to the team "tensing up" in the late innings. Whatever it was, it hurt. Penn's sixth error of the day allowed Harvard to knot the score and send the game to extra innings. The Quakers' seventh error an inning later gave the Crimson two unearned runs and an 18-16 win. "That is about as disheartening as it gets," Gregorio said. "You come back from down 12-0 in the beginning of the game and you blow it open for 10 in the sixth and take the lead -- and then we lose the lead again. We caught some bad breaks." "We hit two grand slams in one inning and we don't win," said Seddon, in his 29th year as the Penn coach, incredulously. "I've never seen that and I don't think you ever will again." Clearly a turning point, the loss deflated the Quakers. In the second game, Penn could not get its offense on track, notching only four hits. Three more errors led to five unearned runs for Harvard, as Penn freshman Mike Mattern (4-1, 2.81 ERA) suffered his first collegiate loss in a 6-0 shutout. Saturday brought Dartmouth (5-11, 3-1) to Penn and the Quakers came out prepared to repeat their '98 sweep of the Big Green. But the visitors, behind the strong left arm of starter Jeffrey Dutremble, would not oblige. Penn was limited to just three hits as Dutremble fanned seven. Penn starter Hepler (0-3) was up to task, however, matching Dutremble out-for-out for most of the opener. "I felt pretty good about my performance," said Hepler, who is second on Penn with a 5.04 ERA. "I got behind in the count more than I would have liked to but my changeup was working well and I was able to keep them off-balance." But two unearned runs in the third and a late two-run double gave the Big Green all the offense they needed. Buoyed by Dutremble's retiring 11 Penn batters in a row in one stretch, Dartmouth picked up a 5-2 victory. "[Dutremble] pitched a good game," Gregorio agreed. "He kept it down, and we couldn't adjust to it." Gregorio, who was one of just three Quakers to record a hit, said he "definitely felt more comfortable at the plate." On the weekend, the catcher went 6-for-15 with two home runs, giving him the team lead with four. In Saturday's nightcap, a towering home run to left by Gregorio gave the Quakers an early 1-0 lead. With the way Penn starter Mark Lacerenza (0-3, 5.40 ERA) was pitching, it seemed this would be enough to carry the squad to victory. After that dinger, however, little went the Quakers' way. Putting the hit-and-run on with one out in both the third and fourth, Seddon could only shake his head in disbelief as his batters popped into double plays each time to end the rallies. And after four scoreless innings, Dartmouth got to Lacerenza for four singles in the fifth, taking a 3-1 lead. In the sixth, singles by Glen Ambrosius, Farscht and freshman Brian Fitzgerald brought home two runs to tie the game, but an opportunity to take the lead slipped away as Penn stranded two to end the inning. "That was a key point because it would have been easy for us not to respond," Big Green coach Bob Whalen said. "We tried to make adjustments -- all our hits were the other way -- and were fortunate that a couple of balls found the holes." In the Big Green's next at-bat, the visitors succeeded where Penn had failed. A two-out single by Dartmouth junior Yale Dieckmann -- who had popped out in a similar situation to end a 1998 game versus Penn -- put the Big Green on top to stay. The Quakers went in order in their last at-bat, and despite several strong pitching performances, again left Bower Field without a win. "You can take two approaches," Hepler said of how the team may respond to this weekend. "We can get upset about the losses and what we could have done, or we can look ahead because we know that we can compete with anyone in the league. "With our team, we're kind of streaky, so when we do get a win in a close game, hopefully we'll get on a roll." With 12 Ivy games left, the Quakers must find a way to recover, pick up the elusive 'W' and get back into contention.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.