IN THE BLEACHERS: Pitching is key to Penn victories

Penn pitching coach Bill Wagner was oozing with confidence after the Quakers took three out of four from Harvard and Dartmouth to open the Ivy League season. And with good reason. For if there was still any question about who has the best all-around pitching staff in the Ancient Eight this season, it was erased by the Penn rotation's four solid outings this weekend. "Without a doubt we have the best pitching staff in the league," Penn senior righthander Dan Galles said. "We have experience in our three senior starters and a draftable junior. It definitely gives us an advantage. We believe we can and should win every game." Or at least give them a chance to win every game -- which is exactly what the Quakers' staff did against the Crimson and Big Green. Galles and junior Mike Shannon each turned in sterling performances yesterday as Penn swept a doubleheader from Dartmouth. Shannon scattered five hits en route to a 2-0 shutout while lowering his team-leading 2.25 ERA. "Mike is one of the best pitchers on the East Coast," Penn senior catcher Rick Burt said of the hard-throwing righthander. "He throws hard. He throws strikes. There's nothing more you can say about Mike other than he's a better pitcher than they are hitters." Before Galles took the mound for the first game of yesterday afternoon's twin bill, the Quakers had not beaten the Big Green since 1990. In Wagner's mind, there was no one better to snap the Quakers' futility streak than the one they call Bulldog. "I wanted Galles to pitch the first game against Dartmouth," Wagner said. "It was somewhat of a revenge thing. They had beaten us the last six or seven times in a row. It was time to shut them down." Galles may have had a bit of a personal score to settle with Dartmouth as well. "Dan wanted to beat them real bad," Burt said. "Last year they hit Dan pretty hard. He gave up nine or 10 runs, and he takes that stuff kind of personally." Spotted to an early six-run lead, the Quakers' team captain cruised all day, throwing strikes early in the count and relying on a wicked changeup to finish off the Big Green hitters. Galles racked up eight strikeouts while allowing only four hits en route to an easy 9-1 victory. If Shannon and Galles were exceptional, senior righthander and staff ace Ed Haughey merely did what he always does in Saturday's opener against Harvard. "All he does is win games," Burt said. "It's always his slider. He wants to throw it every time and I want to call it every time. It's a nasty pitch. People just can't hit it." Haughey came within one pitch of tossing a shutout of his own before Brian Ralph deposited a 3-and-2 slider over the right field fence and forced Haughey to settle for 4-2 complete-game victory. "He made one bad pitch and the kid hit a home run," Wagner said. "Other than that, he shut them down. I wanted the kids to get off to a win in the first game, and Haughey was the kid." Even senior righthander Lance Berger, who was pitching on three days' rest and obviously didn't have his best stuff, pitched well enough that he could have won Saturday's nightcap. "He didn't have a lot of control, but he battled," Burt said of Berger, who yielded only four runs through seven innings in Penn's 7-5 extra inning loss. "He put us in a position to win the game. He did his job, even if it wasn't one of his better outings. You can't ask for a lot more than that." Thus far in this young season, Penn hasn't gotten anything less.

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