Baseball drops four over weekend

For the Penn baseball team, this is a weekend it would like to forget.

The Quakers took leads into the late innings of two games -- including six no-hit innings from Ben Krantz in the final game -- but still dropped four contests at Princeton.

While the Quakers (4-16, 0-4 Ivy League) -- who have now lost six straight -- improved on defense and on the mound, Penn stranded an average of 9.5 runners per game in the four losses to the Tigers (8-11, 4-0).

"That is just unbelievable," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "We're still leaving a huge number of runners on base.

"It's tough to win that way."

It looked as if the Quakers were going to be able to shake their struggles for the first six-and-a half innings on Friday morning.

Andrew McCreery was pitching a spectacular game and had only thrown 70 pitches going into the final frame. But with one out, Princeton's Eric Voelker drew a walk to begin the rally.

Princeton then sandwiched triples from Tim Lahey and Steve Young around a Ryan Reich single to tie the game at four.

With the Penn outfield in, Pat Boran hit a shot to rightfield that scored Young, giving the Tigers the 5-4 victory.

"We played for two hours, and didn't make an error --ÿAndrew just didn't finish it," Seddon said. "Princeton hit some really good pitches in the last inning... but we should have scored more runs earlier."

In the nightcap, Princeton continued their offensive onslaught, scoring three runs in the first inning.

Although Penn pitcher Dan Fitzgerald was able to last six innings while giving up one more run, the damage had been done. Any chance at a Penn comeback was thwarted when the Quakers stranded 11 runners through the first six innings.

In addition to the pair of losses, the Quakers also suffered the loss of Bryan Graves, who injured his ankle rounding first base. Graves hit a homer in the first game.

First inning woes continued to plague the Quakers on Saturday. After they grabbed a 1-0 lead when Nick Italiano doubled to plate Mike Goldblatt, Penn pitcher Marc Lacerenza walked the four out of the five batters he faced -- with another reaching on an error -- before being lifted for Mike Mattern with the Tigers ahead, 2-1.

Although they closed to one, 4-3, the Tigers pulled away in the sixth and took the 7-4 win.

In the last game, Krantz had a no hitter going through six innings, and the Quakers were rolling, 4-1. The Tigers scored their lone run when Young -- after being walked earlier in the inning -- came home on a groundout.

As for Penn, Italiano had proven most pivotal in getting the Quakers' offense going, knocking in two runs with a single in the fifth.

But in the sixth the Tigers stormed back. Not only was Krantz' no hitter gone, but Princeton also plated five runs to claim a 6-4 lead.

"Krantz was breezing," Seddon said. "But then Princeton scored five runs as fast as you can shake a stick."

Penn eventually fell, 8-4, as Princeton completed the four-game sweep.

"All four of them were winnable games," Seddon said. "It's not that we have weak players. We have some players who need to play a little better -- we need to et some players hot.

"We really haven't had that right now."

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