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Baseball vs. Mount St. Mary's 7 Vince Voiro RHP Credit: Michelle Bigony

After dropping three of four games in its series against Lafayette this past weekend, the Penn baseball team will look to rebound against another Keystone State opponent.

Today the Quakers will host St. Joseph’s — rainfall pushed the contest back a day — to kick off the first round of the 19th annual Liberty Bell Classic.

In addition to Penn, one of the tournament’s founders back in 1992, and St. Joe’s, this season’s field features Villanova, Temple, La Salle, Lehigh, Delaware and recent rival Lafayette.

The Classic is a single-elimination tournament composed of an eight-team bracket. The final two teams will square off in the championship game at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies.

But before the Penn squad has a chance to ponder names like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, it must first deal with more pertinent, albeit less famous, ones like Dewey Oriente and Kevin Taylor.

The first basemen and designated hitter have been leading the charge this season for the Hawks (6-11). Oriente leads the team with 14 runs and a crisp .452 on-base percentage, while Taylor brings the thunder as the Hawks’ leading slugger with three home runs and a .623 slugging percentage.

Though Penn coach John Cole and St. Joe’s skipper Fritz Hamburg have remained friends since their days at Ithaca College, the teams did not compete last season, and neither coach has seen much of the other’s squad.

“I saw them a little bit in previous years,” Cole said. “I know they played pretty well this weekend.”

Scouting the Hawks likely wouldn’t have been much help this season anyway, as St. Joe’s has been anything but consistent.

Earlier this month, the Hawks played an erratic series against New Mexico State. After losing the first game by a 1-33 margin, St. Joe’s dropped the middle two games by a combined thirteen runs before triumphing over the Aggies with a football-esque 35-16 score.

Taking the hill for the Hawks tomorrow will be senior pitcher Matt Barnathan.

He will likely face off against Penn ace Vince Voiro, who leads the starting rotation with a 2.79 earned run average.

But pitching hasn’t been the Quakers’ main concern thus far.

“We’ve got to play defense, we need to catch the ball,” Cole said. “Our pitchers have done a good job not walking people, which was a big point for us going into the year, but if we catch the ball we’re going to be in every game.”

If the Quakers are able to slap down the leather and come up with some timely hits both this weekend and the next, they very well might find themselves at Citizens Bank come late April.

If they hope to triumph however, they’ll have to overcome a familiar opponent, who happens to be the defending champion of the last two classics — the Lafayette Leopards.

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