So far, everything is going according to plan for the Penn baseball team.
"If you can win three out of four or four out of four at home and split on the road, you can win the league," Penn coach Bob Seddon said yesterday after the Quakers (14-10, 6-2 Ivy) split a Saturday doubleheader with Harvard (7-12, 2-2) and swept Dartmouth (6-11, 0-4) at Murphy Field.
Combined with a series win against Columbia last weekend, the Red and Blue have now won six of their last eight contests and sit in first in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division, with the Ancient Eight's best record.
Penn and Harvard played Saturday on a day when the weather was more appropriate for football than baseball.
In the first game, Crimson second baseman Zak Farkes and right fielder Lance Salsgiver each homered off Penn pitcher Russ Brocato, powering the visitors to an 11-6 victory. Andrew McCreery had a three-run homer for the Quakers, but it was not enough to match Harvard's onslaught.
"They are a good team," McCreery said of Harvard. "They came out and hit the ball."
In the second game, Penn pitcher Ben Krantz pitched a complete game, allowing four runs on nine hits.
But he got little offensive support until the eighth inning, when leftfielder Nate Moffie blasted a three-run double which catapulted Penn to a 6-4 victory.
"It was a huge comeback," Penn shortstop Steve Glass said, adding that the win provided the momentum to come into the Dartmouth doubleheader ready to win.
The sun came out yesterday, and so did Penn's bats. In the early game, the power came from the bottom of the order as catcher Brian Winings and centerfielder Coba Canales each had three hits, with Canales hitting a double and a triple and Winings cracking a two-run home run in the second inning. McCreery pitched a complete game, allowing only one run off five hits, and Penn won comfortably, 8-1.
Canales, a freshman, "is going to be a good player," Seddon said. "He chips in, gets a walk, gets on base, and his defense is worth its weight in gold."
McCreery would have had a shutout save for a home run in the seventh inning by Dartmouth shortstop Ed Lucas which just curled around the left-field foul pole. It was originally called foul by home plate umpire David Brudzinski, but after a discussion with first base umpire Jeff Arthur, the call was changed. Seddon agreed, saying that the ball was "fair by 20 feet."
McCreery particularly liked the team's fast start yesterday.
"Usually, I 'quick pitch,'" to maintain the momentum, he said. This strategy may have also accounted for the fact that the first game -- a seven inning affair -- was completed in one hour and 39 minutes.
The second game was not nearly as short -- three hours, 49 minutes -- and the pitching again was a major reason why. Penn's Billy Kirk and Dartmouth's Andrew Brown both had trouble with control, issuing three walks each, and Kirk hit both the Big Green's Jason DaCosta and Brian Zurhellen with pitches twice.
Kirk "just couldn't find the zone," Seddon said.
Brown "was a little erratic, and we were just sitting on his fastball waiting for when he got behind in the count," McCreery said.
The strategy paid off, as Penn first baseman Kasey Adler hit a three-run home run in the third inning which sealed what would end up as a 6-3 victory for Penn.
"I think we put it all together today," Glass said. "We're all pretty happy about that."
