Another weekend split for Baseball

Two Sundays ago, the Penn baseball team found itself in a must-win situation after dropping the first two games of a four-game Ivy League weekend. The Quakers won both games at Yale that Sunday to keep their Ancient Eight hopes alive. Last weekend the Quakers traveled to Cornell and promptly found themselves with their backs against the wall again after losing both sides of Friday's doubleheader. But Penn (18-11, 5-7 Ivy) once again found its second day magic, sweeping the Big Red (8-15, 4-6) to remain in contention for the Gehrig Division crown. "We have come back after bad starts on weekends," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "Very unusual -- I never remember a year like this." With eight league games to play, the Quakers find themselves three games behind Princeton and one behind second-place Columbia in the Gehrig race. The Tigers will visit Murphy Field this weekend for a four-game set. Next week, Penn will head to New York for a Saturday doubleheader, then return home to host the Lions on Sunday. If they hope to win the division, the Quakers will have to break out of their recent pattern of winning only on the second day of an Ivy set. Things could have been different for Penn this weekend in Ithaca, N.Y. The Quakers had leads in both of Friday's losses, but fell by scores of 5-2 and 9-6. Penn struck quickly in the series opener. Second baseman Nick Italiano doubled to lead off the game. He advanced to third base on Oliver Hahl's groundout and scored on a Chris May sacrifice fly. But just as quickly as Penn took the lead, Cornell tied the game, with lead-off man Andrew Luria scoring on Erik Rico's RBI single. Rico knocked in five runs in the two games on Friday. The Big Red captured the lead on Flint Foley's RBI triple in the third inning. A pair of two-out hits in the fifth gave Cornell all the offense it would need behind staff ace Brendan McQuaid, who allowed just one more run to the Red and Blue. McQuaid scattered eight hits over seven innings to extend his record to 4-0 on the year. Penn starter Mike Mattern pitched well enough to win, allowing three runs in five innings, but fell to 2-3 on the season. Friday's second game was much more painful for the Quakers, who blew a pair of two-run leads en route to the 9-6 loss. With Penn leading 3-1 in the bottom of the third, Cornell first baseman Raul Gomez hit a three-run homer to put the Big Red on top. The Quakers rebounded, though, scoring three runs in the top of the fifth inning, all with two outs. The inning featured a passed ball, an error and an interference call, all of which led to Penn runs. Despite their fifth-inning follies, the day did belong to the Big Red. Rico hit a solo homer in the seventh off Penn starter Ben Krantz and a bases-loaded double in the eighth off Paul Grumet to put Cornell ahead to stay. "[Rico] individually beat us," Seddon said. "We just couldn't get him out." Cornell went ahead again in the first inning of Saturday's opener, but it was Penn that won both games, 6-1 and 10-2. The Big Red wasted no time spoiling Andrew McCreery's bid for a second consecutive no-hitter. Luria doubled to lead off the game, then scored on Gomez's RBI single. McCreery, though, was unfazed. He did not allow a run for the rest of the afternoon, and walked away from Hoy Field with his third Ivy League win of the season. All the run support that McCreery would need came in the second inning. After the Quakers had tied the score 1-1, Penn right fielder Mike Goldblatt hit a two-run dinger off Cornell starter David Self. The freshman went 2-for-3 in Saturday's opener. In the nightcap, Penn got its power from more familiar sources. Both McCreery and May went deep as Penn scored five runs in the first three innings and never looked back. The Red and Blue had another strong pitching performance, this time from junior Dan Fitzgerald. The only blemish on Fitzgerald's day was a two-run homer by Foley in the sixth inning. Fitzgerald struck out 12 Big Red batters and walked none. He allowed just six hits, proving that last week's four-hitter at Yale was no fluke. "Danny just pitched so well," Seddon said. "He had a ratio of balls and strikes that were incredible. They didn't hit him." That's good for the Quakers, who now need to find a way to win the first two games of their four-game sets in order to have a shot at the Gehrig Division title.

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