Baseball outlasts Drexel

Penn beat its area rival as a pinch-hitter went yard and a stalwart tied a record. A pair of big hits -- one record-tying, the other game-winning -- came off the bats of a pair of Quakers sluggers at yesterday's Penn baseball team's close, 6-5 win over Drexel at Murphy Field. While senior Glen Ambrosius recorded his 170th hit to tie the all-time leader in Penn history, Quakers junior Ron Rolph banged out the biggest hit of the day. Rolph, who came in to pinch-hit in the bottom of the sixth inning for Penn (18-14), rocketed a three-run home run over the right-center field wall in the bottom of the seventh to break a 3-3 tie with the Dragons (11-24). The shot off Drexel reliever and losing pitcher Shane Carroll gave Penn a lead it would not relinquish. "I was just up there looking for a fastball, and the guy left it up and a little bit out," said Rolph, who played at first base from the seventh through the ninth innings. "I got a good piece of the bat on it, [but] I didn't really know it was gone when I hit it." Neither did many of the other players, especially when the ball bounced back onto the field after it hit what they thought was the outfield fence. The ball, though, really flew nearly 15 feet above the fence. It landed back onto the outfield grass after bouncing off the protective netting that surrounds the Murph. Luckily for the Quakers, the umpire wasn't fooled by the ball's ricochet. "It's a little weird here," Rolph said of the backdrop hung to protect cars on the Schuylkill Expressway from longballs. "You can't really tell if it goes out or not. That's why I pulled up at second, but then I saw the signal [from the umpire to go to home plate]." In the inning following Rolph's go-ahead blast, a far shorter but just as notable hit was struck by senior tri-captain Glen Ambrosius. With two outs and nobody on base in the bottom of the eighth, Ambrosius managed to tally his 170th career hit with a fast grounder that rolled past second base and into center field. Besides breaking an 0-for-4 day for Ambrosius, the grounder gave him a share of the Penn career hits record that had been set by Penn Hall of Famer and 1996 grad Mike Shannon. True to form, when Ambrosius' record-tying hit came off Dragons pitcher Mike Sheehan, he quickly took his base without a pump of the fist or any other sort of celebration. "He's done it very quietly," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "He kind of just gets his hits, and next thing you know he's getting 170 hits, which is great." Ambrosius said that he is honored to have matched such a prestigious record, especially after considering the big hitters -- like Phillies outfielder Doug Glanville -- who have played for Penn in years past. "Who knows all the great players that have come through here?" he said. "To hold a record like that in an important category like hits is something that I won't forget." Although sentimentally important, Ambrosius' hit in the bottom of the eighth didn't affect the scoreboard, as the side was retired two batters later with the Penn senior left on third. While Penn left a total of 11 men on base, just getting on base was a problem for both teams throughout the entire game. Drexel, a team that usually loses games by leaving a plethora of runners on base rather than not getting them aboard, was forced right into nine straight outs by Penn starting pitcher Matt Hepler. The frustrated Dragons then allowed two runs to score with two outs in the bottom of the third that gave the Quakers an early, 2-0 lead. Control problems plagued Hepler in the fourth, however. After allowing an earned run, the junior gave up two straight walks to load the bases and then hit a batter to bring a runner home and tie the score at 2-2. Two scoreless innings followed which saw only five men get on base between both teams. In the midst of that, Penn executed a nice 4-6-3 double play in the top of the sixth. Finally, in the bottom of the sixth, the Quakers broke the tie with a sacrifice fly that drove home Rolph. Drexel, though, quickly evened the score at 3 in the top of the seventh when Penn catcher Bill Collins misfired on a pickoff attempt at third that gave the runner a free pass home. Despite Rolph's go-ahead homer in the bottom of the seventh, the Dragons managed to hang tough. They scored a run in the top of the eighth off winning pitcher Dan Fitzgerald to bring the deficit within two. That left Ambrosius stranded on third after his record-tying hit in the bottom of the inning. Finally, in the top of the ninth, Penn reliever Nick Barnhorst got ripped for two hits that brought the game to within one, 6-5. Barnhorst was quickly replaced by closer Paul Grumet, who struck out the game's final batter after a wild pitch sent runners to second and third. The tight victory marks the fifth win in six games for the Red and Blue, who are gaining momentum right before this weekend's four-game series with Princeton that could determine the winner of the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig division. "It's gotta help," Seddon said. "To have [Drexel] rally late like that and to have it go down to the last batter and it works positive for you, that's got to help."