Despite the Penn softball team's neat work yesterday's sweep of Dartmouth, head coach Leslie King talks like it's the midseason doldrums for her women.
"I feel like we got away with it, to a certain extent," she said. "We didn't play our best softball."
On paper, the Quakers looked clean - no errors, eleven hits and two home runs in the 4-0 and 7-3 wins against the Big Green.
King knows that her players could have sent Dartmouth over the fence, though.
"I'd like us to make more plays . to score more runs," she said. "I would have liked to see us hammer them."
Penn took a few innings to warm up before exploiting Dartmouth pitcher Angela Megaw's weak showing in the opening game.
Freshman Kelsey Wolfe's single in the fourth inning got things going, driving in Alisha Prystowsky, who had reached base on an error. After adding a run in the sixth, Prystowsky sealed the win in the seventh with two runs batted in of her own.
Freshman phenom Jessie Lupardus notched a complete game shutout, striking out nine Big Green batters while walking none.
Dartmouth got itself into some messy situations in the nightcap, giving away two runs in the first inning via an infield error, an illegal pitch and two timely walks. Senior tri-captain Christina Khosravi homered in the third inning for her seventh of the season, and junior Anna Puglisi followed suit, smashing her first collegiate home run in the fifth for two RBI.
It was the details that irked both coach and players.
"We didn't execute as well in moving or scoring runners," King said.
"We left a lot of [them] on base," tri-captain and second baseman Annie Kinsey said. "We have to get our bunts down."
Erratic Dartmouth pitchers walked many batters in both games - 11 bases on balls in all - which gave the Quakers a chance to inflate the score through some quick hits. Yet the batters failed to turn the baserunners into RBI.
"We knew what they were gonna throw, but we didn't necessarily take advantage of it," King said. "I think their pitching staff is a staff we could have had more hits against."
The Quakers' lineup struggles took the bats out of the hands of power hitters Kinsey and Khosravi, who were both intentionally walked. Penn was unable to make Dartmouth pay.
"Things like this will cost us in tighter ball games," King said, referring to the twinbill against a stronger Harvard team that Penn has slated for tomorrow.
"We weren't stringing things together."
Penn, now at 18-8, will travel to Boston today for the doubleheader against the Crimson, who are currently on a three-game winning streak. Though the women are stuck in a New England hotel longer than they expected, they are geared up for the important Ivy matchup.
"If we just stay tight, stay loose, we'll be okay," Kinsey said.
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