For beating sluggish Temple, Cole knows the right button to push

How does Penn baseball plan on ending its recent slump? Easy. Look no further than coach John Cole's desk.

"We're bringing it into the dugout tomorrow," Cole said, pointing at a bona fide Easy Button from the Staples commercial.

After migrating to Florida for its first eight games, Penn returns north, looking for an win in its home opener against Temple this afternoon at Meiklejohn Stadium.

"We're anxious to play up north with the weather being nice tomorrow," Cole said. "It makes it a little bit more exciting. We want to see some adjustments we made in the last day or so with what we learned in Florida."

The Quakers posted a 3-5 record in the Sunshine State, but have lost their last three - a slide that can be blamed on abysmal fielding. Over that three-game stretch, Penn tallied nearly as many errors (10) as runs (11).

Penn yielded double-digit runs in each contest, losing by an average of almost 11.

"We [have] got to field the ball better," Cole said. "We can't give teams 5 or 6 outs an inning."

The coach continued on potential points of improvement: "We have to do a better job with pitch selection at the plate. The general team philosophy is we're still playing tentative, and without a lot of confidence."

A win over the crosstown Owls would give the Quakers that boost of confidence entering this weekend's four-game set at Georgetown.

After beginning the season 2-7, Temple took the latter half of a four-game series versus Buffalo, and now looks to extend its winning streak to three. In its most recent win, Temple rode the stellar pitching of Big Five Pitcher of the Week Tom Dolan to a 9-0 shutout.

While Dolan may work in relief, freshman righty Rob Chamra will start for the visitors.

The hosts will counter with a freshman, as well, with Reid Terry getting the nod for the home opener's first pitch.

"He's a freshman, he's learning," Cole said. "He's got a breaking ball so the more we get him out there the better."

Being a mid-week game, however, Terry should not expect to remain on the mound for long. Cole anticipates using over a half-dozen hurlers - likely all breaking-ball pitchers.

"We have to do a good job with our pitchers locating their breaking balls," Cole stressed. "[Temple] is a very aggressive fastball team. If we catch the ball and we get our breaking stuff over it's going to be hard for them to score."

Offensively, the Quakers will look for someone else to produce besides Big Five Player of the Week Tim May, who batted .632 over Spring Break.

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