Baseball torched by Leopards' offense

Penn baseball has seen better days. Following a weekend when the Quakers' dreams of an Ivy League title were all but dashed by two consecutive losses to Princeton, the team was shellacked yesterday in sunny Easton, Pa, falling 23-7 to Lafayette.

The game was out of conference play, so the demoralizing loss won't count against the team's dwindling chances of taking home an Ivy League title.

And although momentum is a big part of baseball -- and Penn (11-21, 7-9 Ivy) has had a nine-game losing streak, a seven-game losing streak and a five-game winning streak on its roller coaster ride of a season -- coach Bob Seddon denies the weekday games have any bearing on the weekend.

"These kind of games aren't hard to get over because you weren't ever in the game," Seddon said. "It has nothing to do with this weekend, even with tomorrow."

In their defense, the Quakers don't have a deep enough staff to send any of their top pitchers to the mound for virtually meaningless weekday games. As usual, Seddon used the game to get some players in who do not play on the weekends.

"We can't pitch any one of our top eight pitchers," Seddon said. "They pitched last Saturday and Sunday and they have to pitch this Saturday and Sunday."

Outside of Remington Chin, who threw one scoreless inning, the other three pitchers who were used, -- Joe Thornton, Michael Gibbons and Joe Wilamowski -- came in with a combined 18.1 innings pitched on the year.

The Leopards set an early tone for Thornton's first start of the year. The sophomore allowed six earned runs on six hits and lasted only one inning. He pitched briefly in the eight-run second, but did not record an out.

He was replaced by Gibbons, now sporting a hefty 27.00 ERA, who started right where Thornton left off, allowing 10 runs -- eight of them earned -- in his one inning of work.

"The first few guys ... weren't good," Seddon said. "They got bombed."

The one bright spot on the mound -- a term that must be used loosely when referring to a game where the other team scored 23 runs -- was Wilamowski, who lasted five innings and allowed a comparatively few six runs, four of them earned. Chin pitched a scoreless eighth, but by then, the game was far out of reach.

The defense was also no help, as the Quakers had five errors, which led to five unearned runs for the Leopards.

For Lafayette, the offensive numbers were gaudy, as one would expect. Sophomore Kevin Leasure led the way, going 5-for-6 with two home runs and six RBIs.

Fellow sophomore Frank Cortazar, hitting two spots ahead of Leasure, went 4-for-6 with an RBI and benefited from Leasure's career day, scoring four runs.

For Penn, Alex Blagojevich and Nate Moffie turned in the same solid performances at the plate that have become routine for the seniors this season. Blagojevich was 3-for-4 with two RBIs. Moffie, hitting leadoff for the first time all year, went 3-for-5 with an RBI. Moffie's hits move him into second place all-time in Penn history with 177 base knocks. Those two outfielders accounted for half of Penn's 12 hits, as offense was tough to find.

A number of players were given rare starts, including Hank Watson at catcher, James Dunning at second and of course, Thornton at pitcher.

Penn will continue its stretch run tomorrow against a tough Lehigh team on the road.

The Mountain Hawks have a 20-13-1 record and are in first place in the Patriot League at 9-3. Lehigh is coming off a sweep of Holy Cross last weekend.

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