Roth and Brown pick up where the bats left off

Doug Brown has had mixed results closing games out for Penn in the ninth inning.

Maybe coach John Cole has found the solution - make the senior pitch the first eight instead.

Brown did just that in the second game of the Quakers' doubleheader against Dartmouth, pacing them to a 6-2 victory for their third win of the four-game weekend.

Penn swept the Big Green, 6-2 and 5-1; Saturday's doubleheader saw the Quakers first fall to Harvard 4-2 before coming back for a 6-4 win.

Penn 6, Dartmouth 2

Penn 5, Dartmouth 1

Freshman Reid Terry finished what Brown started in game four for Penn (10-11, 4-4), which pulled away from a 2-2 stalemate in the seventh.

Junior Jarron Smith and freshmen Matt Toffaletti and Steve Gable all reached for the Quakers to load the bases with nobody out. Dartmouth (4-13-1, 1-3) called for a new pitcher, but reliever Kyle Zeis gave up two sacrifice flies and a single.

When the dust had cleared, the Quakers were up 5-2 and wouldn't be challenged for the rest of the game.

Brown got the win to move to 2-3 after a dominant performance. In eight innings, he struck out 10 and allowed only a pair of runs on nine hits.

The opening game of the day was a similar story, with freshman Todd Roth turning in a second straight eye-catching performance.

Last weekend, Roth threw six and two-thirds innings of no-hit ball; yesterday, he followed it up with a seven-inning complete game effort in which he gave up only one run.

A three-run second inning - initiated by the first three hitters reaching base - gave Penn a lead for good.

With the sweep of the Big Green, the Quakers picked up their first winning weekend against Red Rolfe division opponents since before 2004.

Harvard 4, Penn 2

Penn 6, Harvard 4

Even with senior pitcher Joe Thornton keeping the Crimson's potent lineup at bay, the Quakers' offense proved unable to generate the runs to pull ahead for the win, and Penn lost its opening matchup with Harvard, 4-2.

But the puzzle came together in Game 2 for the Quakers, when freshman pitcher Jim Birmingham tossed seven hitless innings with run support for the win, 6-4.

Junior right fielder Jarron Smith continued his recent hot streak on offense, hitting 2-for-3 and slamming a three-run homerun in the seventh inning to give the Quakers the lead over Harvard in game two.

"Right when I saw the hanging breaking ball I knew I had to drive it," the junior said. "Once I connected with it, I knew it was gone."

Smith's offensive efforts were bolstered by a solid pitching performance by Birmingham, who notched his first college win despite some control issues in the fourth and fifth innings, allowing six walks.

"I just lost some control and then was able to find it for the six and seventh so it was interesting," Birmingham said. "But it was exciting to finally get my first win."

Junior right-hander Andy Console pitched the last two innings of game two.

In game one, Thornton turned in a solid performance - four runs allowed in seven innings - for naught. The Quakers struggled to provide the offense to back him up, as Harvard pitcher Max Perlman gave up just two runs for the contest.

Senior Joey Boaen scored Penn's first run of game one off after a single to right from junior Alex Nwaka, but Harvard took the lead for good with three runs in the fourth.

"The whole day [Harvard] didn't have very many hits so we should have won both games, but we just have to get our bats going and I think that's why we lost the first game," Smith said. "We got lucky in the second game because we made some mistakes, but we also made some big plays to win the game."

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