Baseball heads north to hunt Lions

Penn tries to build on its recent success when the Ivy League portion of its season gets underway this weekend. The Penn baseball team (3-7-1) can erase the early-season disappointment and leave their struggles behind as they open up their Ivy League season this weekend with four games against Columbia (3-10). In the first doubleheader of the home-and-home series against Gehrig Division foe Columbia Saturday, the Lions will host the Quakers at Andy Coakley Field on the Harlem River. On Sunday, both teams will travel south down the New Jersey Turnpike and play a pair at Bower Field on the Schuylkill River. "Their field worries me," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "It's only 330 feet to center field, meaning it's deep in the corners and shallow in center, so anything hit to centerfield with depth is a home run." What makes the abnormally small field dimensions a concern for Seddon is the lack of pitching consistency. Over the first eleven games of the season, the teams' earned run average is just under nine runs per game. Only senior Armen Simonian's ERA is under 3.00, at 2.61. "The problem we've had is obviously the pitching, and it's going to have to get better," Seddon said. "Otherwise, we are going to struggle in every game that we play." Compounding matters, the four games this weekend will require Penn to go deep into their rotation. Even the list of probable starters is unclear. "Simonian will pitch this weekend in the first game," Seddon said. "I'm not certain about the second game yet. You'll see [sophomore Sean] McDonald as a starter in one of the games on Sunday, and Ray Broome as a starter. Now who will be the fourth starter? We are not certain." With each game reduced to seven innings (as opposed to the standard nine innings played in the first 11 games), the Quakers must get out to an early lead in order to stymie any comeback effort behind strong performances on the mound. Against St. Joseph's Tuesday, the Quakers scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to draw even at ten runs apiece before the game was called on account of darkness. On the opposite end, the Quakers lost several games on their Florida spring break trip in the late innings. Seddon feels that pitching is the key to winning these shorter games. "Good pitching will stop good hitting," Seddon said. "We can't be giving up eight runs a game because we're not going to be scoring nine, 10 runs a game like we have been doing. Every game is a marathon. It can't continue because we're going to run into better pitching in our League." In Columbia, the Quakers face last year's Gehrig Division cellar-dweller. Even Columbia coach Paul Fernandes admits that his team will be hard-pressed to make any significant improvement on last season's 6-14 Ivy record. The Lions graduated many of last year's significant contributors, and lost pitcher Chris Croft, one of their best hurlers, for the season with an injury. "I don't think they have a lot of pitching. Their best pitcher is a guy named [Dan] Gati, who has been in their program for couple of years, hasn't done much, but has pitched very well so far this year. Croft, a left-handed pitcher, was tough on us at the end of last year." Gati leads the Lions with a 3.32 ERA, and has recorded 20 strikeouts in his 21.2 innings. The other ace for Columbia is Dan Brunello, who has 22 strikeouts in 19.1 innings. Offensively, the Lions have struggled due to the absence of senior co-captains Dominic Balsamo and Matt Murphy. Balsamo, the team's catcher, has played in only one game. "They'll swing the bat and they can score some runs, particularly against a pitching staff that isn't overpowering," Seddon said. The Quakers are looking forward to this weekend's weather forecast, calling for 80-degree temperatures and sunny skies and "Usually we go there and we fight the fog and the rain," Seddon said. "We should get all four games in. Rainouts would kill us, having to play make-ups in the middle of the week. Unless you have a really strong pitching staff, it would really hurt you."

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