Temple shuts down Softball

Heading into yesterday's home opener at Warren Field, the Penn softball team knew that it had to improve its offense. Although the Quakers had swept a pair at Lafayette five days earlier, they did so solely through brilliant pitching performances and solid defense. Yesterday, their mediocre batting came back to haunt them, as the Red and Blue (6-12) just couldn't mount any kind of offensive threat against Temple (13-17). Penn was shut out in both games of its doubleheader -- 3-0 in the first game and 5-0 in the second. "We need to bring all three parts of our game -- offense, defense and pitching -- and that's where we've been inconsistent," Penn head coach Carol Kashow said. The blustery afternoon began on an ominous note for Penn when starting pitcher Becky Ranta walked Owls' lead-off batter Katie Spencer. Yet, after a couple of ground-ball outs gave the Red and Blue some hope of emerging unscathed, Temple pitcher Bari Lynn Pflueger drew a walk to extend the inning. The Owls capitalized. Catcher Ashley Caudill drove in Spencer with a single to left, and third baseman Martha Serrato tripled home both Pflueger and Caudill. From that point on, no runners would cross the plate for either side, as pitching ruled the day. The lone bright spot for the Quakers' offense was shortstop Crista Farrell, who collected two of the Quakers three hits in the opening game by going 2-for-2. On the mound, though, Ranta was quite impressive after the rocky first inning, as she dueled Pflueger pitch for pitch for the remainder of the contest. "The Becky Ranta that threw six shutout innings was the Becky Ranta that won nine games for us last year," said Kashow, who added that the right hander will address her early-game difficulties by changing her warmup routine for future starts. In the second game, freshman Nicki Borgstadt also pitched well for the Quakers, but she too suffered from a lack of run support. Borgstadt held Temple in check most of the way, until the Owls were able to pad their three-run lead to five runs in the sixth inning en route to the 5-0 shutout. Penn's defense also hurt Borgstadt at times yesterday. Four of the five runs that she surrendered were unearned. The first costly mishap occurred when Quaker left fielder Clarisa Apostol misplayed a single into a three-base error in the third, which allowed two Temple players to score. "If I had gotten that ball, we would have given up two fewer runs," the junior co-captain said. "I just picked my head up and took my eye off of it." Penn had trouble making up for its fielding mistakes while at bat. Temple's Liz Naughton was in the process of throwing a perfect game against the Red and Blue before Farrell led off the bottom of the fourth by reaching first on a mishandled bunt by the Owls' third baseman. "Clarisa told me that [Naughton] had a perfect game going," Farrell said of her teammate. "And I wanted to ruin it." That mission was accomplished courtesy of the E-5, while Penn secured its first base hit of the afternoon an inning later when first baseman Veronica Richardson hit a hard ground ball out of the backhand reach of Temple's lunging second baseman. Sophomore outfielder Erin O'Brien, who entered the second game in the fourth in favor of co-captain Lindsay Wagner, was responsible for the only other Penn hit -- a solid line-drive single to left-center field in the seventh. The Quakers' bats were clearly not in top form in the March cold yesterday, but a couple of Penn players suggested that there is more to it than just picking up base hits -- they need to be timely. "Clutch hits have really been hurting us," Farrell said. Kashow agreed that her squad needs to do a better job in creating rallies and driving runners in. "In the first game, we left a lot of runners on," she said. "We shot ourselves in the foot." Sometimes the best thing a disappointed coach or team can ask for is to get right back into action before the losses fester. And the Quakers, who will visit La Salle for a 3 p.m. doubleheader today, will have that luxury. The 3-15 Explorers enter tomorrow's game on a seven-game losing streak after dropping two games to Drexel yesterday, 6-2 and 11-3.

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