La Salle entered yesterday's game with four home runs in 26 games and a slugging percentage that resembled a batting average. The Explorers' modus operandi is no secret - grab a few runs here and there, and lock down with pitching and defense. Thanks in part to Penn's sloppy fielding, the plan worked to perfection.

With 10 games left in the season, the baseball team has already won more games than in either of the two previous seasons. Penn (13-14, 7-5 Ivy) owes a lot of that success to a deep and talented freshman class. There are 11 freshmen on the roster and they are pivotal to the team.

In what should have been a tune-up for this weekend's series, Penn couldn't get anything going, falling 6-3 to the Explorers.

For a program desperate for respect, Tommy Amaker is a match in more ways than one. Amaker, who has spent the last 13 years coaching big-time basketball at Michigan and Seton Hall, has accepted an offer to become the new head man at Harvard.

Penn just can't beat Princeton. The Quakers fell for the 18th straight time to their lacrosse rivals from New Jersey last night, 10-5.

Is this a big enough name for you? Tommy Amaker has been offered the job at Harvard and is expected to take it, according to a report in yesterday's Boston Globe. The Globe had previously reported that Amaker went to Boston to interview for the job on Friday.

It's hard to believe how far we've come since Sept. 6. Back when Penn had only won six of the last nine Ivy League basketball titles, Joe Scott still coached Princeton, and Steve Irwin was still alive. But it was that day that I made 10 predictions for the year in Penn and Ivy League sports, and now it's time to see how I did.

It's hard to put together 60 minutes of good lacrosse, but at this point Penn will take 20. In their last four Ivy games, the Quakers had managed a 2-2 record despite winning only five of 16 quarters, and it finally caught up to them last night against Princeton.

Beating a city rival is great. Beating a city rival on a walk-off single is better. The Penn softball team accomplished that feat yesterday during the first game of a home doubleheader against Villanova, beating the Wildcats 6-5 after senior right fielder Melissa Haffner drove in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh.

Wilson hires Penn's O-line coach to teach his guys how to tackle Acting on a pledge he made in 2006, Columbia football coach Norries Wilson hired Penn offensive line coach Jon McLaughlin yesterday. "What we should do is hire Penn's O-line coach to teach our guys how to tackle," Wilson had said after his defense was manhandled by Penn.

In the end, it's not about putting your family in a good environment. It's not about a commitment to winning. It's not about the money. Wait - actually, it is about the money. At least it is for Billy Gillispie, who signed on as Princeton's basketball coach just a week after inking with Kentucky, just a week after re-signing with Texas A&M;.

It started at the Dean Dome and moved its way up to the Palestra. Now, the Adam Franklin show is ready to hit the road again. Destination? Madison Square Garden. No, he's not starring for Ringling Brothers or the WWE, though his new employer is often confused with the two.

Former Penn closer Doug Brown may have found the secret to revive his pitching career. And believers in baseball's new mystical pitch may have to look no further than Meiklejohn Stadium. Brown has learned how to throw a "gyroball," a pitch allegedly invented by an Asian physicist and thrown by new Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Some old-school Philly flavor will be added to the Penn Relays this year. Ex-76er and former NBA star Charles Barkley will compete in a 100-meter dash against 69-year-old Philadelphia native and comedian William H. Cosby, Jr., Ed. D., better known as Bill Cosby.

As the lethal injection coursed through Barbaro's body at Penn's New Bolton Center, just about everyone had given up on the thoroughbred phenomenon. Everyone, that is, except his jockey, Edgar Prado.

With 51 seconds left in the third quarter of Friday's game, Ari Sussman scored a goal for Dartmouth, putting Penn in a 7-3 hole with just one quarter to play. I was covering the game for the DP, and wrote in my notepad ":51, Sussman. Last nail in the coffin?" Shows how much I know.

In a spectacular and emotional comeback, Penn managed to overcome a 7-3 deficit with five unanswered fourth-quarter goals, upending the Big Green 8-7.