Baseball battles for Ivy crown

It's easy for members of the Penn men's baseball team to fall into routine and become rather bored with the Ivy League schedule.

Playing up to four games in a row against the same opponent makes it very hard for the players to get excited for a matchup.

But in this weekend's pair of double headers against Princeton (15-15, 7-1 Ivy), the Quakers (18-11, 9-3) are having no trouble pumping themselves up.

"I haven't been able to sleep for a while," Penn senior Andrew McCreery said. "I haven't been nervous for a game for God knows how long."

McCreery's co-captain, Nick Italiano, shares this sentiment.

"You try to tell yourself it's just another game," Italiano said. "But I'm not going to lie, we're pretty excited. It hit me when I woke up this morning -- this is the biggest game of my college career."

It's not hard to see why the Quakers are so eager to have a go at the Tigers.

Last year, the Quakers were close to dethroning Princeton from the top of the Ancient Eight's Lou Gehrig division -- a position they've held every year since 1996.

Up three runs in the last inning, needing just two outs to defeat the Tigers in the first game of a pivotal four-game series, McCreery surrendered four runs en route to a 5-4 loss. This provided Princeton with the momentum needed to sweep the series, putting Penn in too deep of a hole from which to claw back.

"I don't even want to think about last year," McCreery said.

But the Quakers aren't ready for history to repeat itself. Returning several starters from last season and adding a talented group of freshmen, the Quakers find themselves poised to win their first division title since 1995.

So what do the Quakers have this year that they lacked last season?

"We are definitely more of a team," McCreery said. "We are more solid throughout the lineup, and we have more consistent pitching."

Princeton, however, will pose quite the challenge for Penn.

As with most top-teams, the Tigers' strength is in their arms.

"Their whole pitching staff is good," McCreery said.

The Tigers are led on the mound by junior reliever Thomas Pauly, who was named Ivy League Pitcher of the Week last week for the second consecutive week.

Pauly, who boasts a 0.76 ERA, had quite a performance weekend -- allowing just one hit and one run in five and 2/3 innings, while striking out 11 batters.

Aside from Pauly, however, the Quakers believe that the Tigers' bullpen is vulnerable.

"Our strategy is to knock out the starters early and get into the bullpen where we can do some damage," McCreery said.

"Their bullpen isn't very strong," Italiano added. "Especially on the road, because when the team travels they have to bring less guys."

The Tigers' offense is not as potent as their Penn counterparts. The Quakers' lineup, boasts eight players batting over .300 while the Tigers have just two -- B.J. Szymanski and Jon Miller.

Princeton's hottest batter lately has been catcher Tim Lahey.

Last weekend, Lahey went 5-for-16 -- including a double and a home run -- scoring six runs and two RBI, good enough for a mention on the Ivy League Honor Roll of the Week.

Lahey leads Princeton with seven home runs and a .585 slugging percentage.

For success this weekend the Quakers must find that perfect balance between aggressiveness and patience.

"We need to come out and be aggressive," he said. "We can't be intimidated. We need to show them that we're for real."

Penn must also not allow the Tigers to start a rally.

"We need to do D.C. -- damage control," McCreery said. "We need to limit runs scored in an inning. We can give up one or two runs, but we must eliminate the big inning where they score six or seven runs."

But, above all, Penn stresses that it must just continue to play the way it is playing.

"We're playing well," Italiano said. "We just need to keep on doing what we're doing. If we do that, it should make for a very entertaining weekend."

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