The Penn softball team will play its final four home games of the season in doubleheaders against Cornell and Columbia this weekend.
The Quakers face the Big Red tomorrow, and the Lions come to town Sunday.
The Quakers are hoping to improve upon their 2-4 record thus far in Ivy League play.
Last weekend, Penn (14-20) earned splits against Brown and Yale after opening the season with a pair of losses to league-leader Princeton.
Saturday's doubleheader against Brown was rained out, and the games were rescheduled for Monday afternoon. As a result, Penn ended up playing twin bills three days in a row, capped off with Tuesday's games against Villanova, when it should have had Monday off.
That period was a challenge for the Quakers, especially their shorthanded pitching staff. The beleaguered group gave up 14 runs in its two games against the Wildcats.
But according to junior Casey Hare, the team managed to show its mettle.
Those "three days were pretty tough," she said. "I think that the way we came back shows that this team is really full of heart. Even if we're tired, we can still push through it."
With three days of rest going into tomorrow's contests against the Big Red, Penn's pitchers will be ready to go again.
Freshman pitcher Emily Denstedt will be available to start after sitting out Tuesday's games at Villanova.
Denstedt pitched two complete-game shutouts the two days before, one each against Brown and Yale.
Junior Olivia Mauro will likely be the other starter tomorrow.
Against the Wildcats, Penn coach Leslie King turned to Hare, normally an infielder, to supplement the worn out staff.
However, it was the Quakers' bats that carried the team to a 9-8 comeback victory in the second game against the Wildcats.
Penn leads the Ivy League in batting average by a huge margin, hitting at a .301 clip as a squad. Princeton is second at .275.
"We'll definitely come out swinging, and I think we're going to do really well against them," junior Melissa Haffner said.
Cornell comes in as the only team other than Princeton above .500 in the league early on, at 3-1.
In its conference opening weekend against Dartmouth and Harvard, sophomore Ashley Wolf led the Big Red by going 9-16 at the plate. Wolf earned Ivy Player of the Week for her efforts.
Wolf is now ranks second in average in the Ivies at .411, while Penn sophomore Christina Khosravi is right behind with at .410 on the year.
Columbia, on the other hand, sports a 1-3 league mark and is in the midst of a five-game skid.
"We want to take advantage of playing on our home field," junior second baseman Stephanie Reichert said. "Columbia and Cornell are both great teams. Both squads have great pitching and great hitting and we're not underestimating that, but we can do just as well."
Cornell and Columbia rank third and fourth, respectively, in both team batting average and ERA.
The Quakers will need to get another great performance from Denstedt in order to take care of the teams from New York.
So far, Princeton is running away with the league title. But with a big weekend, Penn could plant itself in second place.
The team understands the importance of the weekend series.
"We need to win these four games," Reichert said.
