Baseball must win in Ithaca

When the Penn baseball team opened its season in early March, it did so with high expectations. After all, the Quakers were returning most of their key players and an exceptional starting rotation from last year's Gehrig Division-winning squad. Optimism abounded. Penn was seemingly poised to make a run at the Ivy championship. In the past several weeks, things have changed. If one uses Penn's recent performances as a barometer, those high hopes are in serious danger of not being fulfilled. The Quakers have struggled through the first half of the season, posting an 11-15 overall record and going just 4-4 in their eight Ivy League contests. Despite the troubles, however, all is not lost for Penn. The Quakers now find themselves at a critical crossroads, as they travel to Ithaca, N.Y., for a pair of noon doubleheaders against Gehrig Division co-leader Cornell today and tomorrow. The Big Red has been solid all year, and is currently tied with Princeton atop the Gehrig standings with a mark of 5-3. Overall, Cornell stands a game above .500 at 9-8. Unfortunately for Penn coach Bob Seddon, pure talent hasn't been enough this season -- the Quakers have allowed repeated breakdowns in fundamentals to cost them numerous games. The low point may have come this week, when Penn dropped a pair of home games to Lehigh. In losing two to the Engineers, the Quakers wasted two solid pitching efforts. The display was, in many respects, characteristic of the Quakers' season. As expected, the Penn starters have repeatedly given solid efforts from the hill. But costly errors and a lack of clutch hitting have often proved too much to overcome. "We're just not hitting," Seddon said. "To be polite and nice about it, we're in a drought." The Quakers' hurlers will once again need to come up big this weekend and hope their teammates can pick up the rest.

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