When none of the gears are turning, it's time to evaluate to the assembly of the whole machine.
And after Penn softball's two disheartening losses against Lehigh yesterday, that's all head coach Leslie King could do.
"I take full responsibility as a coach," King said. "I want to shoulder the blame. I did not prepare my team well for an opponent like this."
The Quakers committed five errors in game one - including three in a disastrous second inning - en route to 9-2 and 5-3 losses.
"The team was not mentally or physically prepared," she added. "We need to do a whole lot of things better."
King gave stud pitcher Jessie Lupardus the quick hook after just two innings and ten batters faced. She struck out the side in the first, but in the second her defense collapsed behind her; a double and an infield single turned into three (unearned) runs. Lupardus did not return in the third.
"I wanted to get her out," King said.
But the bullpen did little to stop the bleeding. Tory Satagaj gave up four runs - three earned - in 3.1 innings. Indeed, her sixth inning struggles forced King to call on game-two starter Emily Denstedt to finish off the opener.
Christina Khosravi slugged a home run in the first game and an RBI double in the nightcap, but the Red and Blue scraped together just six hits on the day. Lehigh's star pitcher, junior Lisa Sweeney, struck out 15 Quakers in her seven innings, though she actually increased her earned run average to 0.88.
Penn was trailing in 12 of the 13 innings. A Bridget McDugall double early in game two plated two runs for the Quakers' only lead, which they promptly relinquished.
The mental preparation, both King and her players stress, was simply not there for Penn.
"I think what happened is that a couple of the girls on the team psyched themselves out," Khosravi said.
"When one person makes an error, you have to rally together to make sure the errors don't happen again. We didn't do that."
