After winning two of its last three games in the Rollins Tournament over spring break, the Penn baseball team hoped to ride its momentum into this week's games against Temple and Siena.
But Mother Nature altered the Quakers' plans. Last Wednesday's game against Temple and the upcoming four-game weekend series with Siena were canceled due to pending inclement weather.
Penn is determined to turn this apparent negative into a positive, however.
"If the team makes an issue of it, then it's a problem," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "But [the coaches] are not making an issue of it so hopefully the players won't either."
Seddon noted that Penn "had two strong practices in the last few days and had a chance to review all of the basics." The team plans to practice again this weekend, with the exception of one day off.
"I always tell the players not to let the weather bother you," Seddon said.
Yet several of Penn's players called Seddon yesterday after hearing of the games' cancellation, and requested that he schedule more games in states such as Virginia. But such a trip would cost approximately $5,000 to $6,000, according to Seddon, and the team's budget simply does not permit such a trip.
While the five canceled games are not a trivial matter, Seddon is more concerned about the Quakers' upcoming matchup with Lafayette on Wednesday being canceled. The Lafayette game is a "Liberty Bell game," meaning that the winner will play the victor between Saint Joseph's and Lehigh. This would give Penn two additional games that are currently not on its schedule.
"We may have a bigger problem [than this weekend] on Wednesday," Seddon said. "You lose the possibility of two more games not in the schedule."
Following spring break, Ivy teams are permitted 20 maximum dates to schedule games. Penn has lost two of its 20 dates in the past week alone.
"I'll try to pick up games, but the calendar doesn't give much leeway," Seddon said. "It would be nice if the calendar were later, but there are restrictions against it."
While Seddon insists that the situation "could be worse," he said that Penn had been lucky with good weather in seven of its last eight seasons.
This season's unfortunate weather could potentially affect Penn's Ivy League title chances, should it continue into the Ivy League season.
"You can have the greatest team in the world returning, but if you get rained out on a weekend, you're not going to win the league," he said.
Seddon also noted that because the College World Series is in mid-June this year, East Coast schools are naturally at a disadvantage.
"They're essentially saying, 'We don't want the East,'" he said. "We don't even have a regional site in the East." The closest site to the East Coast in this year's World Series is Notre Dame.
Nevertheless, Seddon has applied his lifelong philosophy to baseball and is optimistic about Penn's chances despite Mother Nature.
"You have to turn a negative into a positive, because it could have been worse," he said. "That's how I brought up my kids, and that's how you have to live your life."
Indeed, Penn may have lost five of its scheduled games, but it learned an important life lesson in the process.
Penn began the Rollins Tournament losing its first four games. The Red and Blue dropped two to the host team, Rollins, and also fell to Georgetown and Long Island University. Penn went on to defeat Long Island in each of the teams' next two meetings, 6-3 and 10-7.
