Any time a team breaks an eight-game losing streak, it has to feel good. And although Penn baseball's 13-1 win over Saint Joseph's yesterday only improved the Quakers' record to 7-18, it was a big victory.
If Penn learned anything from its losses to Brown (and, to a lesser extent, Yale) last weekend, it was that non-conference records are basically unimportant to the season.
The Bears were 0-12 coming into their doubleheader Saturday against Penn. They could have easily been 6-6, playing a very difficult schedule early on and having hitting stats that were clearly the class of the Ivy League.
When the Bears routed the Quakers in the doubleheader, they looked relieved to have won a game, but they also seemed to have expected to win.
Penn's losses to St Joe's and Villanova last week were brutal; not because of the standings, but because of the way the Quakers played, which was woefully inconsistent.
In the non-conference games, it was a combination of poor fielding and poor pitching.
Against Brown, everything went wrong, while against the Elis on Sunday, it was just not enough of anything at the right time.
But yesterday, Penn played what was unquestionably its best baseball of the year. The Quakers allowed only one error, received a great starting effort from Michael Gibbons, and produced a barrage of hits.
And when the Quakers look at the Lou Gehrig Division standings before they head to Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend, they will see themselves just two games behind a not-very-good Columbia team for first place.
The teams in the Red Rolfe Division showed that they are far superior to the Gehrig teams with their 14-2 road performance last weekend in interdivision play.
But the Ivy League championship series is just two out of three games, and anything can happen there.
This is not to say that Penn will either win the division or the league title, but to have played the way the Quakers have through 24 games and still be in the race is pretty remarkable.
"It's amazing when you think about how poorly we've played," Penn coach John Cole said.
I was excited about Cole when I first met him, thinking that he was a coach who cares about the little things that make a team better and that he would not tolerate a prolonged losing streak.
Talking to him over the weekend, it was clear that the losing pained him as much as it did any other player on the team.
And while he was almost giddy after yesterday's game, he knows that the Quakers still have a long, uphill climb.
Penn may be less talented than most, if not all, of the other teams in the Ivy League. But Cole's attitude has had an effect on this team, and if the Quakers play well today, win or lose, and then pick up a huge win or two this weekend, there's a good chance that the momentum will continue when Penn finishes its conference schedule against Cornell and Princeton.
It looked like the Quakers were going in the right direction when they won five games out of six late last month, but that immediately preceded the eight-game losing streak.
And during that good run, Penn still was not playing well in all phases of the game.
Still, Cole believes that his team is far from resigned to another unsuccessful season.
"They have not given up; they know they can play better," he said. "And they're going to fight. They're not going to quit."
On its season-opening trip to Florida, Penn opened up with seven straight losses, including two to Maine. The Quakers did not fold, though, and beat the Black Bears in their third try.
But of course, the game against St. Joe's yesterday was only one game.
And Cole knows that before he can sniff division races his team has to be more consistent.
"We've got to pitch," he said.
Gibbons' performance today was superb, the first great start for the Quakers in about two weeks.
If Penn can finally play complete games, that may be enough to do something special.
Josh Hirsch is a junior urban studies major from Roslyn, N.Y., and former Senior Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is jjhirsch@sas.upenn.edu.
