In the midst of a losing season, baseball coach John Cole is pulling out all the stops.
Down 7-4 in the sixth inning, Cole instructed sophomore right-hander Steven Schwartz to intentionally walk the dangerous Villanova righty Jeremy Hunt with a runner on third and left-hander James Dolbier on deck.
Dolbier seized the opportunity. The sophomore smashed a Schwartz pitch over the right-center field wall to lead the Wildcats to a 10-7 win at Meiklejohn Stadium yesterday.
The win gave Villanova (13-14, 1-5 Big East) a two-game season sweep of the Quakers (7-19, 2-6 Ivy).
In the first inning, Hunt had given Cole reason to be cautious. The Villanova slugger hit a ball over the left-center field wall and the screen surrounding Meiklejohn Stadium.
The ball cleared 400 feet with ease and appeared to glance off the concrete barrier supporting route I-76 behind the stadium.
Still, Cole acknowledged that passing up a righty-righty matchup for a righty-lefty one was an unorthodox move.
"Hunt has hurt us, big time," he said. "[Dolbier] hadn't done much against us ... but we didn't get the ball where we wanted it."
"No second-guessing -- I'd do it again tomorrow," Cole added. "We just didn't execute the way we wanted to with that pitch."
The Quakers had struggled to even come within three runs. Villanova jumped out to a 3-0 lead after an inning and a half. The early runs prompted Penn to reach into its already stretched bullpen for the third inning.
But that was only the start of the Quakers' woes on the day. Joe Wilamkowski had an even harder time than starter Bret Wallace.
The senior reliever faced three batters, surrendering a single, a home run and another single to the meat of the Wildcats' order. After throwing a wild pitch to his fourth batter, he was yanked in favor of senior Sean Abate.
All in all, Penn allowed 10 runs on 13 hits. But with two more doubleheaders coming up this weekend, one of the most important statistics of the day might be the six pitchers used.
"We're going to try and match up as best we can," Cole said. "But we're going to have to pitch a bit differently than we normally do."
It wasn't all bad news for the Quakers, though. Prior to the Dolbier homer, the Quakers were threatening to tie the game. After sophomore Scott Graham reached on an error and freshman Jim Farrell singled, Joey Boaen laced a triple to left-center, cutting the Villanova advantage to four.
Boaen had a 4-RBI game, which he attributed in part to "being more disciplined at the plate."
"I think everyone's been hitting a lot better recently," he said of his teammates.
But one run later with the game at 7-4, Penn missed its best chance with runners at second and third; sophomore Michael Gatti struck out to end the inning.
With Harvard and Dartmouth soon to visit Meiklejohn Stadium, the Quakers will need to capitalize on those opportunities if they want to pull any victories out of the weekend.
