M. Baseball: Low-flying Hawks offer a healthy diversion

With victories in the Liberty Bell Classic today and next Tuesday, a championship game at Citizens Bank Park awaits as the prize.

But don't expect the eight-team tournament to get in the way of Penn's real ambition - winning the Ivy League title.

The Quakers (6-10, 1-3 Ivy) open the single-elimination tournament sponsored by the Philadelphia Phillies with a home game against Saint Joseph's (3-15, 1-2 Atlantic 10) at 3:30 p.m. at Meiklejohn Stadium. The winner advances to play the winner of Lafayette and Villanova next week, and the championship is April 10 at the Phillies' South Philadelphia yard.

Even with that at stake, Penn will not be abandoning its strategy to use midweek games to keep the rotation intact for the four-game Ivy League weekends.

For instance, in last Wednesday's loss to Lafayette, the Quakers sent a new pitcher to the mound in each of the first eight innings to give them their standard midweek work, and today should be no different.

Today is "our only midweek game, so we're pretty much going to run it like we would normally," Penn assistant coach John Yurkow said. "I don't think we say 'the Liberty Bell's coming up; we've got to change our rotation.' We're still geared up for the weekend games."

Both teams will stumble into today's game coming off rough weekend series. After the Quakers took the first game of four against Columbia, the Lions stormed back, winning the last three by a combined margin of 23-8.

The Hawks, meanwhile, went 1-2 in their weekend series at Atlantic-10 foe St. Bonaventure.

Opponents are hitting .317 against St. Joe's staff, which has a combined ERA on the wrong side of seven-and-a-half.

So for Penn, this might be just the opportunity to break out of a slump.

"The pitching has improved from last year, but at the same time we're not going up there with a good approach," catcher and captain Josh Corn said. "We're kind of going up there just trying to swing rather having a good strategy."

Penn split the season series with the Hawks in a pair of blowouts last year, falling 20-9 in the first meeting and prevailing 13-1 in the Liberty Bell consolation game.

But the Quakers' recent history in the Liberty Bell Classic hasn't been outstanding. In last year's opening round, Penn allowed 12 runs in the first four innings in a 15-6 loss at Villanova.

In 2005, Citizens Bank Park was within the Quakers' reach after a 10-inning win over Lafayette, but they were eliminated by the Wildcats, 3-1, in the semifinals.

In fact, neither Penn nor St. Joe's has ever taken home a title in the 15-year history of the Classic.

One of them will be within striking distance by nightfall.

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