Penn can kiss Citizens Bank Park goodbye.
Having beaten Saint Joseph's to make it into the semifinals of the Liberty Bell Classic, a win over Lafayette yesterday would have written the Quakers a ticket to the Philadelphia Phillies' home park for the tournament final.
But the Leopards, who squeaked by Penn for an extra-inning win earlier this season, were a little hungrier, trouncing Penn 10-2 in Easton, Pa.
"We got beaten in all phases," coach John Cole said. "We didn't pitch, we didn't hit and we didn't play very good defense."
Unlike the 2-1 affair that took place at Meiklejohn two weeks ago, Lafayette absolutely thrashed Penn's pitching, jumping on starter Robbie Seymour for eight earned runs in four and a third innings.
Despite putting 10 runs on the board, the Leopards did little that could be called slugging - Lafayette had only two extra-base hits, and just one off of Seymour. Instead, they manufactured runs behind leadoff man James Conrad's baserunning savvy and a lackadaisical Penn defensive effort that yielded three errors.
"There were a bunch of innings where the leadoff man got on with a walk or a little single," said catcher and co-captain Josh Corn, who went zero for four. And "we turned little innings into big innings when we made errors here and there."
Last time out against the Quakers, Conrad's 0-for-4 performance helped doom the Leopards. But yesterday, he helped doom Penn.
The centerfielder - Lafayette's "go-guy," as Cole calls him - went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and a walk, and whizzed around the bases to score three times by swiping a bag and aggressively taking the extra base.
As much as Conrad kept Penn on its toes, the Leopards' performance on the mound was the real story. Starter Brad Woodfield gave up seven hits and no earned runs in six innings of work. The Quakers could only manage to score as a result of an error by catcher Dave Drechsel, which opened the door for a pair of RBI infield hits in the fourth.
Despite cranking out a respectable eight hits, the Red and Blue could only manage to scratch out singles - and that put them in a hole they simply couldn't climb out of.
And Woodfield wouldn't give Penn any gifts.
"He threw a lot of strikes; he didn't walk anybody," Corn said. "When you don't walk anyone it's easy [for us] to string out hits and not put up any real runs."
The sting of the loss was certainly made worse for the Quakers with the knowledge of the opportunity they missed out on. When Lafayette and Lehigh battle for the Liberty Bell crown under the big lights on April 10, Penn might just be wincing a little bit.
"It's very disappointing. It's something we'd like to do, we didn't get it done," Cole said. "We gotta move on."
