Baseball looks to tame Lions to finish year

The Quakers play four games against Columbia this weekend and hope to close out the season above .500. No longer with its eyes set on the Gehrig Division title, the Penn baseball team is now hoping to finish with a winning record after this weekend's season-ending series against Columbia. The first doubleheader of the series is scheduled to be played tomorrow at Columbia. The two teams will then travel down to Philadelphia to close the season with a noon doubleheader Sunday at Murphy Field. "We need to finish up in good shape," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "I would not be very happy if we didn't play well this weekend, because we played so well all year." The Quakers were eliminated from contention for the division championship after suffering a four-game sweep at the hands of Princeton last weekend. With the four losses to the current Gehrig Division leader, Penn (18-19, 7-9 Ivy League) dropped to third place and remains ahead of only Columbia (8-32, 4-12) in the division standings. If there's a good team for the Quakers to rebound against after their tough slide in the standings, though, the Lions are it. After a promising start in the Ancient Eight, splitting with Brown and sweeping Yale in the first weekend of league play, Columbia has managed only one additional Ivy win this season. "They've struggled of late, but they were very formidable early in the year," Seddon said. The Lions' struggles to win games this late into the season make them prime targets for the Quakers to attack after falling in the title race. Columbia's ballpark, with its close center field wall, is also a perfect place for Penn's waning hitting to make a return. In the past five games, which include the disappointing series with the Tigers and Wednesday's ninth-inning loss to Lehigh, the Quakers have been outhit by their opponents, 54-40. These dwindling numbers are unusual for a Penn team that tallied 29 hits and 33 runs in a single game earlier this month against La Salle. "We've hit the ball very well most of the year, but of late we haven't swung the bat quite as well," Seddon said. "We've gotten some hits, but we haven't gotten the timely hits -- that's really what we need to do this weekend." The Red and Blue will also need to concentrate on the hitting of Columbia -- including Ivy home runs leader Pete Aswed -- if they want to keep their hopes of a winning season alive. The Lions' dismal league record, which is only better than Yale's two Ivy wins, isn't due to poor hitting. Columbia has scored five or more runs in nine of its 16 Ancient Eight games played so far, equaling Penn's total of five-run Ivy games. "They have a good hitting team," Penn catcher Jeff Gregorio said. "I don't think their pitching's that great, but we'll expect them to hit the ball more than pitch." Hoping to tame the Lions' bats in the first game of the series will be Penn ace Mike Mattern, who has made a strong comeback after an early-season slump on the mound. "I might have been pressing a little bit in the beginning," the sophomore pitcher said. "Once the Ivy League season started, I pitched like I knew I could have since the beginning. I just feel a lot more comfortable up there [now]." A freshman will start on the mound in every other game of the series for the Quakers, which shows the progress that Penn's young staff has made over the season. "It's kind of tough, because early on your pitchers struggle a little bit [with] not being ready," Seddon said. "But our pitching has been very adequate lately." Despite going in without the chance for an Ivy League title, the Quakers are still hoping to make these last four games special both for the team and for some individual players. "I think it's been a couple years since we won 20 games, and that's a big goal for us," Mattern said. "Plus, we're going to be losing a couple seniors that have played well for us all year and have carried our team. It would be nice to see them have a big weekend for their last weekend of their careers here."