Baseball hammers Temple

Greg Lee earned his first career save and Kevin McCabe had four hits as the Quakers beat Tenple. On a chilly, windy afternoon at Murphy Field, the Penn baseball team's bats were anything but cold. The Quakers (14-13) slugged out 14 hits against four Temple (12-18-2) pitchers yesterday en route to a 10-3 victory over the Owls that put the Red and Blue back over the .500 mark. Center fielder Kevin McCabe led the Penn attack with a 4-for-4 day at the plate that included his second home run of the season. "He's having a great year, pushing 40 hits," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. McCabe's first hit of the day was his 36th of the season. The senior surprised the Temple infield by dropping down for a bases-empty bunt single in front of home plate in the second inning. The next time McCabe came to the plate, Chris May was on base. Owls third baseman Sam Sabolchick, expecting more smallball, crept in on the infield grass. But McCabe did not cooperate, hitting a home run to give Penn a 3-2 lead. "I feel like when I have my bunting game going, I usually have good games," McCabe said. "I certainly didn't plan [the home run]. When the third baseman's in like that, usually I like to try to put one over his head, but I got a nice, fat inside fastball and just kept my head down and kept going." After the homer, McCabe added two more singles. His knock to lead off the sixth inning started a rally for the Quakers that broke the game wide open. McCabe scored from first on second baseman Nick Italiano's triple to left center field. Italiano then scored on Oliver Hahl's single. Hahl advanced to third on James Mullen's single and scored on Glen Ambrosius' sacrifice fly to left. Mullen came around on Jeff Gregorio's double. All of a sudden, Penn led 8-3 and the game was out of reach for the Owls. Penn sophomore Greg Lee pitched 4 2/3 innings for his first career save to make sure that it was out of reach. Lee entered the game in unusual circumstances. With one out and runners on first and second in the top of the fifth inning, Temple's leading hitter, Rob Cucinotta, hit a one-hopper off the face of Penn reliever Nick Barnhorst for an infield single. Barnhorst was OK, but could not continue pitching. Lee had been warming up in the bullpen, but he found himself on the mound earlier than expected with the bases loaded and one out with Penn holding a tenuous 4-2 lead. "I just wanted to try and throw some strikes, try and end the inning quickly and let us get in and hit," Lee said. Lee did the job, getting designated hitter Kyle Sweppenhiser to pop up to second base and Sabolchick to hit a weak roller to first base for two easy outs to get out of Dodge. "We had bases loaded with the fourth and fifth hitters up and couldn't get the ball out of the infield," Temple coach Skip Wilson said. "Not much you can do about that, we have to give [Lee] credit." Lee made only one bad pitch in his time on the hill yesterday, serving up a gopher ball to Temple left fielder Keith Ramsey, a .180 hitter who had not gone deep all season. Ramsey's blast brought the Owls to within a run, and Lee immediately settled down, not allowing another hit until there were two outs in the eighth inning and Penn had a 10-3 lead. Lee did encounter some trouble closing out the game in the ninth, though. A leadoff walk and two infield hits loaded the bases for Sabolchick, but Lee struck him out swinging on a nice low changeup to end the game. "I knew with a lefty up, my changeup would be the best pitch to go to," Lee said. "I'd thrown a couple of good ones already, so I just thought I'd put a changeup on the outside corner, let him see if he could hit it hard. He tried, and he didn't make contact. That's all I was going for."

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