The Penn baseball team began the season looking for answers.
By the end of the year, it was clear that the Quakers would not be in the same position at the start of next year.
After starting this season with errors, blunders and losses after losses, the Quakers rallied, winning 13 of their last 17 games, finishing 17-22 overall, and 11-9 in the Ivy League, their first winning record in conference play since 1996.
The Quakers topped off their season by winning a series 3-1 against Cornell over the weekend. After losing the first game 10-2, which dropped them out of contention for the Ivy League title, Penn won three straight contests.
The Quakers finished second place in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig division, two games behind division-winner Princeton.
"This league, we said from the very beginning, could have been won by any of these three teams [Princeton, Columbia and Penn]," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "But we lost four games to Princeton. And you can't lose four games to one team and ever expect to be the winner of a league."
Penn dropped a pair of doubleheaders to the Tigers during March 29-30.
Normally, the games against the Tigers would have been scheduled later in the season but were played earlier this year due to Penn's final exams schedule. Penn also had a two-week break before facing Columbia in the final games of the season, May 4-5.
"Yeah, it hurt us," Seddon said. "I think it's terrible that the Athletic Department had to have this situation.
"I think it stinks. And it's a shame that all spring sports had to have this happen."
Penn's Mike Goldblatt went 3 for 4 and had the winning RBI in Game 2 one of the series, a 4-3 Quakers win.
"We knew we were out [of the title race] after the first game," Goldblatt said. "But we just said to take the pressure off and just have fun out there."
The Quakers seemed to do just that, taking two wins in New York from the Lions, 8-5 and 10-9.
"We came a long way from the beginning of the season," Seddon said. "We really improved."
Although the Quakers will graduate senior pitchers Mike Mattern, Dan Fitzgerald and Mark Lacerenza, several strong players return.
Rising senior Nick Italiano ended the year with a .370 average to go along with six home runs and 33 RBI. Classmate Andrew McCreery ended hitting .390 and also went 3-4 on the mound with a 3.88 ERA. Steve Glass, another rising senior, batted .363 and knocked in 22 runs.
Sophomores Mike Goldblatt, Bryan Graves and Russ Brocato also return next season. In the 4-3 win over Columbia, Brocato pitched eight innings and allowed only three runs, picking up the win.
"That was Russ's best game," Seddon said. "That speaks well for next year. He's only a sophomore -- he's going to be good."
Freshmen Nate Moffie, Alex Blagojevich, Brian Winings, Bill Kirk and Matt Horn all had strong rookie campaigns.
Moffie and Kirk were both named Ivy League Rookie of the Week during the month of April.
It seems that although the Quakers had a poor start to the 2002 season, they will come into next season with a realistic hope of winning their first outright Gehrig Division title since 1995.
