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Baseball v Harvard Credit: Dan Getelman

Not even a record-breaking performance from senior Dan Williams was enough for the Penn baseball team to make up ground in the divisional title race.

The Quakers traveled to Ithaca, N.Y. this past weekend to take on last-place Cornell for a pair of doubleheaders but returned home with only one win.

Just two games behind first-place Princeton, the Red and Blue had a golden opportunity to capitalize on a weaker opponent.

“We knew we had to come in and win at least three,” senior Paul Cusick said.

But the Quakers managed just one victory among three losses, and now appear to be all but out of contention for the Lou Gehrig Division pennant.

“Cornell’s not a very good team,” Cusick said. “So [our performance] was very disappointing.”

“We didn’t play as well as we needed to, and they took advantage of some mistakes we made,” Williams added.

Meanwhile, the Tigers took three of four from Columbia and now own a four-game lead with four to play.

Cusick called the deficit “heartbreaking.”

The Quakers (17-19, 8-8 Ivy) dropped the early game on Sunday, 4-2.

Cornell (9-27, 6-10) took a 4-0 lead, while a late rally from Penn in the sixth inning of the seven-inning game fell short.

In the late Sunday game, however, Williams notched his 195th career hit on an RBI single with the bases loaded in the 4th inning as the Quakers rolled to a 10-2 victory. With the knock, Williams broke Penn’s all-time hit record set by Nick Italiano eight years ago.

“It’s kind of a cool thing to have your name on, but at the same time it kind of sucks when you lose three games the weekend that it happens,” Williams said.

Williams, sitting at 197 career hits, also has a good chance of becoming the 17th Ivy League player — and first Quakers hitter — to reach the 200 career-hits benchmark.

Williams thought his chances of reaching the plateau were “alright.”

Sunday’s late game also featured strong performances from the Quakers lineup and staff ace Cusick.

The top of Penn’s lineup, sophomore Greg Zebrack, Williams and sophomore Spencer Branigan combined for 10 hits and seven RBI.

Cusick went the distance with 12 strikeouts and two unearned runs.

“When the team hits like that, it really takes the pressure off you, and you just have to throw strikes,” he said.

The performance left him with a miniscule 0.58 ERA in Ivy games, which lead the league. Cusick said his teammates like to joke that his conference dominance is the result of “picking on nerds.”

But the Quakers could not carry the momentum of Sunday’s success to Monday, dropping both games, 3-0 and 13-4.

While Penn held Cornell to three runs in the early game, the team managed just four hits.

“We’re hitting when we’re not pitching, we’re not pitching when we’re hitting,” Cusick said.

In the late game loss, the Big Red tagged junior starter Chris McNulty for eight runs in 3.1 innings, and the Red and Blue bats could not keep up.

The Quakers close their regular season with a home-and-home doubleheader with Columbia this weekend. Though the team is out of Ivy title contention, it still has a lot to play for.

“We all play baseball because we like to win,” Cusick said. “Just because the Ivy League title is not right there in front of us doesn’t mean we have any less motivation to play.”

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