Softball brings bats on Ivy road

In its second Ivy League weekend of the season against Brown and Yale, the Penn softball team came away with a pair of firsts - its first three-game win streak of the season and the first collegiate home run for freshman Jamie Boccanfuso.

"It was really exciting," Boccanfuso said of her three-run drive to center field that gave the Quakers the lead in game one against Brown in Providence, R.I. "I was just ahead in the count, and she threw me a fat pitch."

The Quakers went on to lose that game, 9-7, but trampled Brown in the second game, 9-1.

Yesterday, Penn played Yale in New Haven, Conn. and came away with 3-0 and 8-7 victories for the sweep.

In the first game against Brown (8-14, 2-4 Ivy), the Bears started the scoring with a lone run in the bottom of the second inning.

The tables turned after Boccanfuso's home run, which gave the Quakers (7-18-1, 4-4) a 3-1 lead in the top of the third.

But the Red and Blue couldn't hold on to their lead for long, and the advantage flipped back and forth for the rest of the game - there were five lead changes over seven innings.

"We felt like we should've won the first game," coach Leslie King said. "We had the lead three different times and weren't able to hold it."

Although the Quakers were disappointed by the opening loss, their offense didn't let up in the second game.

"We scored lots of runs and felt confident in our hitting, and we knew we could do it again," King said. "And we ended up run rolling them, which was nice."

Sophomore ace pitcher Jessie Lupardus only allowed the one run and struck out eight.

"I feel like they sort of gave it to us. It was an easy win, and we took it," sophomore Kelsey Wolfe said.

Penn had 25 hits and a season-high 16 runs in the first doubleheader, and carried that momentum into yesterday's games against Yale (14-16, 3-5).

The first game was a pitcher's duel into the fifth inning, when Penn capitalized on a Yale fielding error. The Quakers started off poorly in game two but managed to come back from a five-run deficit.

Wolfe hit a clutch triple in the seventh that gave Penn the lead, which it was able to keep for the remainder of the game. Wolfe had seven runs batted in during the two games, including five in the second.

"I think the momentum was on our side, and we just went with it," she said.

After going 2-13-1 in their last 16 games before the weekend, the Quakers are very satisfied with the three wins.

"They felt really good, definitely" Boccanfuso said. "I think it was a good turnaround for our season as a whole."

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