Baseball struggles against seasoned teams in Florida

The Penn baseball team was at a disadvantage heading into spring break.

Unlike many other schools against whom they competed, Penn (3-5) was just starting their season with limited practice.

“A lot of these teams that were playing had already begun their seasons, so we had to play a bit of catch-up,” senior pitcher Vince Voiro said.

The trip began with a 14-1 loss to No. 19 Stetson, followed by a close eleventh-inning loss to Georgia State, 4-3, and a loss to Southern Illinois, 11-4.

The Quakers then blew out Bowling Green, 13-2, in the following game in which pitcher Dan Gautieri went seven innings without giving up any earned runs. This win was followed by a close win against Northeastern, 3-2, which featured Voiro, who gave up two runs in the complete game effort.

Thursday, the Quakers lost to Western Michigan, 11-4, but rebounded Saturday night with a victory against Fairfield, 7-3.

Even though they had to work harder than other teams who have been practicing for a while, Voiro still found that these spring break games are productive, even when playing these better teams.

“You’re trying to get a sense of who your team is and where everybody sits,” he said. “We just work on the basic thing so that once we get back, we can really get going.”

Though the Red and Blue were unable to go .500 for the spring break games after Sunday’s 15-3 loss to North Dakota State, these games were still an opportunity to gauge where the team stands.

“The biggest thing that we need to work on is just showing up ready to play and knowing what we need to work on when we go to practice,” Voiro said.

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