A two-week break couldn't have come at a worse possible time for the Penn baseball team.
The Quakers (14-21, 8-8 Ivy League) are on a tear, sweeping Cornell (10-23, 2-10) over the weekend at Murphy Field, giving them a shot, albeit a long one, at the Lou Gehrig Division title.
After struggling to start the season, the Quakers have won five straight and 8 of 10.
"Hey, we learned how to win," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "What are you goin' to say?
"Nobody knows how -- or why -- but we're finding a way to win."
With the cancellation of yesterday's game against St. Joseph's, the red-hot Quakers now must wait until May 3 to play their next contest, the first doubleheader of a home-and-home series with Columbia (17-18, 11-5).
The Quakers trail Princeton (16-18, 11-5) by three games in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division. Each team has four games remaining. Princeton swept Penn earlier in the season.
"What are you going to do? What happens, happens. You wish you could have done betetr earlier in the year, but it doesn't always work out that way," Seddon said. "I really think we're as good as anybody [in the league] at this point."
Penn did its best to try and prove that this weekend.
Included in the four-game sweep was two victories in the last inning -- the Quakers' seventh and eighth wins in the final frame this season -- a complete-game 5-0 shutout pitched by Mike Mattern, and a 17-4 blasting of the Big Red.
Freshman outfielder Nate Moffie extended his hitting streak to nine games over the weekend, going 9 for 14 with five runs scored and nine RBI.
Like the Quakers, Moffie struggled early in the season but has been on a hot streak as of late.
"I'm starting to feel comfortable," he said. "Things are just starting to click... I'm becoming more relaxed."
Needing a sweep to stay in the Lou Gehrig Division race, Mattern got the Quakers off on the right foot with a complete game, five-hit shutout in a 5-0 win. Steve Glass provided the majority of the offense with a two-run homer in the third inning.
The second game was much different, as the Quakers had another comeback victory, scoring three in the ninth for a 12-11 victory. Matt Horn, who had the walkoff homer to give the Red and Blue their first Ivy win in a 14-12 victory over Brown on April 6, singled in the winning run.
Trailing, 11-9, coming into the final frame, the Quakers rallied yet again. Andrew McCreery led off the ninth with a walk, eventually scoring on a wild pitch. After a Moffie sacrifice fly scored Mike Goldblatt, who had walked earlier, Horn's RBI single scored Alex Blagojevich.
Freshman pitcher Bill Kirk picked up the win in relief by pitching a scoreless final two innings.
On Sunday, the Quakers had another last-inning victory. McCreery pitched a two-hitter, carrying a shutout into the seventh and final inning.
But the Quakers would need more than Jim Mullen's RBI groundout in the third inning after an Andrew Luria double scored Eric Rico in the top of the seventh.
In the bottom of the seventh and final inning, a smart coaching move by Seddon helped the Quakers pull out the victory. With two men on, Penn's longtime coach called for a double steal and Graham Bangert (running for Bryan Graves) stole third and Goldblatt swiped second.
"I was going to steal third base from the word 'go' because Cornell doesn't hold runners on," Seddon said. "They weren't holding anyone on the whole game."
The Big Red then intentionally walked Blagojevich, setting the stage for Moffie to rip a 1-0 fastball through the middle to win the game, 2-1.
The final game was an offensive show, as McCreery capped off an eight-run second inning with a grand slam for Penn's final four runs in that frame, and Horn and Moffie hit three-run homers as the Quakers rolled, 17-4.
Moffie finished that game 4 for 5 and had five RBIs, his best game of a strong weekend.
"We had some problems putting an entire game together [earlier in the season]," Moffie said. "One game we'd get pitching and we wouldn't hit -- we'd lose, 2-1 -- and the next game we'd score 10 runs but give up 12.
We're getting good pitching, that's the main difference... the pitching has really stepped up. They're picking us up."
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