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Penn senior Andrew McCreery gave up four hits in game three, falling in a pitching duel to Princeton's Ryan Quillian. [Phil Leff/The Daily Pennsylvanian]

The weekend began with a walkoff home run, but ended with a much more dejected Quakers team walking off Murphy Field, having lost its last three games to Princeton.

After sophomore catcher Matt Horn ignited Friday's Senior Day crowd by drilling an opposite-field, game-winning solo home run in the bottom of the seventh, Penn's bats fell utterly silent in the series' remaining three games.

The Red and Blue took the opener, 8-7, but then proceeded to score a total of four in the subsequent contests.

"We scored eight runs in the first game, then we come out here and get [11] total hits in two games," Horn said. "That's not Penn baseball."

Penn coach Bob Seddon took a more philosophical approach to his team's lack of offense, which likely means that the Quakers will not qualify for the postseason.

"This proves that, in baseball, good pitching stops good hitting," Seddon said. "They are a team that has very good pitching, and they showed it.

"I thought we pitched pretty well for the weekend -- we just didn't swing the bat very well, and we didn't get clutch hits."

Princeton's dominant pitching up and down its staff was clearly the difference between the two teams.

Penn's starters were solid enough, holding the Tigers to 20 runs in the four games and just 13 in the final three. Yet, Princeton's aces held the Quaker bats at bay like no other team has done this year.

"That's how they win," said Penn senior pitcher and outfielder Andrew McCreery, who hit a two-run homer on Friday.

"They win with their pitching, so we were expecting that coming into the weekend. It's just the luck of the draw who's going to get more [runs]."

Seddon was pleased with McCreery's outing on the mound in game one of Saturday's doubleheader. The Solana Beach, Calif., native allowed just three runs on four hits, striking out five and walking two in a complete game effort.

And his quick pace contributed to the seven-inning game that was played in a lightning-fast one hour and 21 minutes.

While McCreery pitched a nearly flawless game, there was no margin for error. Princeton right-hander Ryan Quillian was tremendous, matching McCreery and then some, in shutting out Penn

"McCreery pitched a good game, but we made a couple mistakes, and they took advantage of that," Seddon said.

Miscues were hard to find on the Tigers' side of the ball. Their defense was extremely steady, aiding an already talented pitching corps.

It was difficult to determine which Princeton hurler was the most impressive, since all were so effective, but Seddon said that Friday's game two starter David Boehle stood out.

Boehle scattered six hits in a nine-inning complete game victory to swing the momentum back in Princeton's direction following Horn's dramatic blow earlier in the day.

Penn's longtime coach was disappointed that his team could not better handle fireballing righty Thomas Pauly.

Pauly suffered his first loss of the season when he surrendered the blast by Horn, but he looked nearly unbeatable for most of his relief stint in game two Saturday.

Penn scratched one run on three hits against him in the ninth to make things interesting, but he had allowed just a harmless single prior to that, striking out six batters in his four innings of work.

Pauly also struck out the side in the seventh.

"I thought we should have hit the last guy a little bit, but we had a lot of guys not swinging very well," Seddon said.

Princeton's rotation was not doing anything fancy, but their pitchers were very fundamentally sound.

"They throw first pitch strikes," McCreery said. "They throw hard and out and don't elevate the ball. They don't rely on a lot of other pitches besides the fastball, and they just keep on pounding you."

Seddon said that he was not surprised that the four games were generally low-scoring, but he was confident heading into the weekend that Penn could have won some pitchers' duels.

"If you had said the score was going to be 4-2 or 3-0, we should have taken our chances," he said. "We thought we'd score three runs. You've got to give their pitching credit."

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