Baseball does splash landing to .500 in Ivies

The Penn baseball team fell to 4-4 in Ivy League play with four close losses to Brown and Yale. The Penn baseball team had four more Ivy League wins within their grasp, but it simply couldn't hang on. Couldn't hang on to any of them, that is. Three times in four games, the Quakers held respectable leads against Brown and Yale, and three times, they lost them. As a result, Penn lost all four games of its homestand, 14-12 and 10-7 Saturday against the Bears and 6-5 and 10-8 yesterday versus the Elis. The losses dropped Penn (7-11-1 overall, 4-4 Ivy League) one game back of Princeton, which took 3-of-4 games this weekend from Harvard and Dartmouth. "We're pretty frustrated," Penn shortstop Glen Ambrosius said. "We lost four close games. There's not much else you can say." The losses were especially disappointing considering Brown had won just two games entering Saturday's rainy doubleheader and Yale (11-10, 3-1 Ivy League) is supposed to be just the second-best team in the Red Rolph Division. "We can't hold a lead," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "We haven't been able to since we started. Going into this game, we have been ahead by two or more runs six times in the last two innings and not held a lead." The Red and Blue should have won all four games, but yesterday's pair of losses was especially disheartening. The Quakers trailed 6-2 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning of yesterday's opener with Yale. Ambrosius led off the inning by hitting a towering fly ball to left field which was carried out of the park by the wind for a home run. Designated hitter Mark Nagata walked, and Penn's fifth batter Armen Simonian smacked a ball to deep centerfield for a long single on a ball which seemed certain to be an out. Yale centerfielder Ben Johnstone had successfully tracked the ball, but he dropped the catch upon colliding head-first with the fence. The umpire, near second base at the time, did not signal clearly, and Nagata was unable to advance past second, leaving Simonian with a long single. While Johnstone was down, Yale ace Eric Gutshall -- who pitched seven innings yesterday in a win over Columbia -- came in and shut down the Quakers, ending the inning with Penn still needing one run to tie. In the bottom of the seventh, Gutshall struck out the side to end the game. The loss may have also landed junior third baseman Shawn Spezio on the bench for the time being. In addition to struggling offensively throughout the season, Spezio's defense took a turn for the worse in yesterday's opener against Yale. Spezio committed three errors -- the only three Penn errors that game. Freshman Jim Mullen entered the game at the top of the seventh inning and also started the nightcap. In the second game, Mullen was flawless in the field and went 2-for-4 at the plate, with two clutch doubles late in the game. "I was just trying to put the ball in play," Mullen said. "That first at bat I was kind of nervous, but once I got to the second at bat I was pretty good." His second two-bagger came in the bottom of the seventh inning with two outs, putting catcher Dave Corleto across the plate with the game-tying run and sending the game into extra innings. In the top of the eighth inning, Penn centerfielder Drew Corradini faked catching a short fly ball, holding Yale's R.D. DeSantis on third. When the ball dropped, DeSantis -- the go-ahead run -- took off for home, but was easily nailed by Corradini for the second out. Joe Carlon put a close to Yale's threat by making a great move to his left to throw out Yale captain Tommy Kidwell. In all, the Quakers had four extra innings to score a single run to win the game, but in the top of the 11th, Yale scored two on a Chad Miller single to leftfield. The Quakers went one-two-three to close out the disappointing weekend. The Quakers entered Sunday's games frustrated, having dropped two winnable games to Brown. Pitcher Armen Simonian and the Quakers led 12-6 after four innings in the first game, but lost 14-12. In the second contest, Penn led 7-5 after five, but Anthony Napolitano collapsed after pitching two-and-a-third innings of flawless baseball, allowing five runs in Penn's 10-7 loss. This weekend's games were the first at Bower Field since last Sunday's brawling incident, and there were several added security measures. Fans were not permitted to stand along the playing-field fence, and signs and announcements were made to thwart profanity, barbeques, glass bottles and alcohol. Additionally, Allied Security provided guards and Athletic Department administrators were present during every game.

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