Matt Toffaletti was just conscious enough to win the game for Penn.
After colliding with pitcher Joe Thornton and hitting the deck hard while chasing a foul pop-up in the seventh inning of yesterday's home game against Lehigh, Toffaletti could barely get up. He returned with the game tied in the eighth and grounded into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded. It was apparent there was something not quite right with the third baseman.
But when Toffaletti stepped up to the plate in the tenth inning in the same situation - bases full, one out and the score still knotted at five - he proved better than any doctor's note ever could that he was feeling fine.
He laced a single into left field and ended the game.
"Honestly, I didn't know what was going on for three innings," Toffaletti said. "I forgot what happened today, I was trying to remember and I was kind of scared. But it came back, and I was really pissed off."
After the Quakers' eighth inning, which was at the same time productive and frustrating, Toffaletti's anger was completely warranted.
Trailing 5-2, Penn's one-two hitters, Jarron Smith and Joey Boaen, got on base to start the bottom half of the frame, and were given several gifts by Lehigh freshman reliever Ken Longernecker.
Longernecker, in just a third-of-an-inning of work, managed to get Quakers across the plate with a balk, two wild pitches and a throwing error on a pickoff attempt.
But when Kyle Armeny tried to round third on an Alex Nwaka single, his foot missed the bag, leaving him on base, maintaining the tie and eventually sending the game into extras.
It's hard to deny, however, that the inning gave Penn the momentum it needed to rebound and close it out.
"When you bring a freshman into the game under pressure, sometimes you gotta wait him out a little bit," Quakers coach John Cole said. "Of course the bad pickoff throw kind of turned the tables on them. So they felt pressure when they shouldn't have."
Where the Mountain Hawks' young pitchers failed - all four hurlers that made appearances were freshmen - the Quakers' old hands succeeded.
Starter Doug Brown pitched four solid innings, giving up two runs on a mistake of a changeup amidst fastballs that touched 90 miles per hour. And Thornton, a senior, gave up just one run in two-and-two-thirds innings.
The Penn offense was largely dormant early on, as Armeny's solo blast in the second started off a four-for-five performance for him at the plate that included two runs and two RBIs.
This showing more than made up for his baserunning gaffe, especially considering Armeny was the winning run.
"When I got to cross in the tenth," he said, "it felt pretty good."
