Junior pitcher Will Tobin walks off the field after a walk off hit by St. John's wins the game on Jun 1.
Credit: Weining DingCHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In a season where it was never expected to make it this far, Penn baseball was counted out for the last time.
In the second round of its NCAA regional appearance, in a win-or-go home match, Penn (24-25, 11-10 Ivy) rallied late in the seventh down 6-2 to take the lead — but it wasn’t enough, as St. John’s (38-17, 14-7 Big East) would pull out the win in the 12th inning with a final score of 10-9. In a game where both teams pulled out every stop, the Red Storm was able to reign supreme.
“The game had a little bit of everything,” said coach John Yurkow, addressing the season-ending loss. “To get two teams that didn't want their seasons to end, I thought we did a good job, and played hard to the last pitch.”
Mario Pesca, towering at six foot eight, started on the mound for St. John’s versus Penn’s own junior right-handed pitcher Ryan Dromboski — the winner of the Ivy League Pitcher of the Year award back in 2023. Early on, the tone was set much differently than the pitcher’s duel that was Penn’s first game against Virginia.
Junior pitcher Ryan Dromboski pitches against St. John's on Jun 1.
After Penn took its turn at the plate, St. John’s showed off its base-running prowess. With a man in scoring position, junior outfielder Nate Polo made a fantastic over-the-shoulder grab to get the second out of the inning, but St. John's Jackson Tucker made it home to notch the first run of the game after originally stealing second.
St. John’s came into the game with over 20 fewer home runs than the Red and Blue, but its bread and butter was situational hitting and stealing bases. In fact, St. John’s would end the match with five steals.
“I felt like that stolen bases were a part of it,” Yurkow said in relation to the loss.
After the Quakers struck back to tie the game early, the two teams saw opposite turns of luck going into the fifth. Penn saw a flurry of hits from sophomore infielder Davis Baker, sophomore outfielder Ryan Taylor, and first baseman Nick Spaventa resulted in no runs. On the flip side, St. John’s scored one run in the bottom of the fourth off of a double by catcher Jimmy Keenan, with another run coming off a pop fly.
Senior infielder/pitcher Carson Ozmer swings at a ball in a game against St. John's on Jun 1.
The pain would only pile on for the Quakers as Collins came out to the plate in a do-or-die situation with the bases loaded, but couldn’t capitalize as a dribbler to third would end the inning with an automatic out. The normally consistently potent Quaker bats had yet to find their groove in the Virginia soil, but they wouldn’t be kept from raking for long.
St. John’s stormed forward, chasing away Dromboski in the fifth with a two-run home run and senior right-handed pitcher Danny Heintz in the sixth by loading the bases. Right-handed pitcher/designated hitter Carson Ozmer was called in to stop the bleeding, but plunked the first batter he saw to force a run home.
With the bleakest of realities in front of them, Penn found that special something from last year's NCAA run. Smacking an easy ball to the left side of the infield, Spaventa rumbled his way to beat out the throw to first, aided by an erroneous throw over the head of St. John’s infielder Marty Higgins.
From there, a fire was lit, a beacon was called, and Penn bats came to respond.
Collins backed Spaventa, hitting a single on the second pitch he’d seen, getting two men on. Ozmer, on a hot streak by the likes of Shohei Ohtani, followed his pitching performance with an RBI single to score Spaventa. With all of this occurring with two outs, right-handed pitcher Tim Cunningham began to show cracks as the Quakers continued to claw their way back into the game.
A plethora of hits, walks, and errors let Penn successfully climb up and out of its deficit as senior third baseman Wyatt Henseler’s first hit of the NCAA tournament was a lead-flipping RBI single. A pitching change did nothing for St. John’s as Baker hit a double to get the score to 9-6, and the miraculous wave of scoring ended with Taylor officially being the second and third out of the inning as the Quakers fully worked through the lineup.
“Yesterday, we were really passive early on,” Baker said. “It was a change that were were able to make to just come out and be more aggressive today.”
Junior outfielder Nate Polo high fives his teammates during a game against St. John's on Jun 1.
Amid this all-out astounding display of team hitting, the momentum was ripped away from St. John’s. However, the top of the eighth saw Tucker add to his fantastic performance at the plate by cutting down an Ozmer fastball to hit a two-run homer, quickly followed by the Red Storm’s Garrett Scavelli stealing a Henseler home run — his second stolen home run in as many days.
To top it all off, in the bottom of the ninth, Keenan smacked a deflating home run into left field to send the game into extras.
Penn started the 10th with three straight outs and with St. John’s sauntering to the plate once again. Senior right-handed pitcher Eli Trop, looking to earn his offense another chance, struck down the first two batters with ease. Tucker came up and, once again, helped his team — with a bunt single and steal of second base. With the game on the line, Garrett Scavelli hit a 109-mph grounder to Henseler — who bobbled the ball towards second, which got Scavelli to first and Tucker to third.
While this unfolded, Tucker saw the wild ball and blew through a stop sign to head home from third. Chavez found himself with the ball and delivered on a rope to junior catcher Asa Wilson, who got blasted by Tucker on his attempt at the plate.
“I think you gotta give Asa some credit too, he restrained himself about as good as he could handling the entire situation,” Yurkow said. “These kids are 18 to 22 years old, they make mistakes, it’s an emotional game.”
As the dust settled, Wilson held on to secure the game-saving out to end the inning — and had some choice words for Tucker, who would get ejected for his dangerous contest at home.
Junior catcher Asa Wilson enters a verbal altercation with St. Johns' Jackson Tucker on Jun 1.
Sadly, that extra bit of emotion did nothing for the Quakers’ chances, as they went 1-2-3 in the 11th and 12th. Junior left-handed pitcher Will Tobin was called upon for perfection but was unable to fulfill the request, as an Anthony Brienza single to center field sent a man home to walk-off the game 10-9.
“You start getting that deep into a game and you're bringing in guys in some spots that they're not accustomed to,” Yurkow said. “I mean, those guys hung in, Eli was really good, Will came in and gave us some good innings, [but] unfortunately, we put a guy on and then a base hit — ball game over.”
Junior pitcher Will Tobin pitches against St. John's on Jun 1.
The game marks the end of an impressive season for Penn, one in which they secured an Ivy League title. Falling short in the NCAA regionals once again was not the hope of any member of this team, as they will now have to say goodbye to many impactful seniors as they prepare for next year.
Junior pitcher Will Tobin embraces his teammate after a walk-off RBI single by St. John's on Jun 1.
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