ITHACA, N.Y. – Starting pitchers Tommy Morris and
Paul Balestrieri worked deep into both games of a Sunday baseball doubleheader, but Penn came through late to win both games and take three of four in a pivotal weekend series at Hoy Field.
A three-run home run in the final inning sent the Quakers to a 4-0 win in Sunday's opener, then Penn broke a tie with a run in the seventh inning of the night cap for a 3-2 victory.
Penn (21-16, 11-5 Ivy) has now pulled four games clear of Cornell (18-15, 7-9) in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division, and Columbia's success this weekend at Princeton has officially eliminated the Big Red from postseason contention.
Game 1: PENN 4, CORNELL 0 (Box Score)
Morris pitched brilliantly for the Big Red, but Penn's Tommy Pellis blasted a three-run homer in the seventh inning immediately after Morris' departure to break the game open.
The Big Red actually outhit the Quakers, but all six of its hits were singles and it was shut out for the second time this weekend. Penn's Gabe Kleiman went the distance with five strikeouts.
Senior
Tommy Wagner extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a first-inning single. Cornell eventually put runners on the corners with two out in the frame, but Penn third baseman Matt McGeagh made a nice pick on sophomore
Will Simoneit's frozen rope up the line and made a clean throw to first base to save a run.
Morris faced the minimum through three innings, but Penn took the lead with a run in the fourth. A leadoff walk and a Tim Graul double but two runners in scoring position with no out. Sean Phelan's sacrfice fly to left-center scored Chris Adams.
Junior Kyle Gallagher hit a single through the left side to give Cornell a runner with two out in the fourth. As he stole second base, the catcher's throw sailed into center field and allowed Gallagher to move up to third. But a groundout eventually ended the inning.
Though he yielded just three hits on one run when he departed after 6 1/3 innings, Morris would be charged with three runs and the hard-luck loss.
Game 2: PENN 3, CORNELL 2 (Box Score)
Junior
Ellis Bitar was 2-for-4 with his first home run of the season, but the Big Red couldn't cash in with two runners in scoring position and no out in the seventh inning, ultimately dropping its third game of the series.
Penn took a 2-1 lead with Graul's two-run homer to left-center in the third, but the Big Red knotted the score in the bottom half of the frame. Junior Ryan Krainz hit a two-out double to left, then Bitar drove him in with a base hit up the box that hit the pitcher in the right leg before bounding into center field.
The Quakers loaded the bases with one out in the fourth, but Balestrieri got out of the inning unscathed and worked another couple uneventful innings. But Penn struck one last time in the seventh with Chris Adams reaching on an infield single, stealing second, moving up to third on a thorwing error on the play, then scoring on a double to left by Sean Phelan. Senior
Jamie Flynn then came on from the bullpen to strand Phelan and minimize the damage.
That set the stage for Cornell's big threat in the seventh, set up by a leadoff single by junior
Pierre Le Dorze. He then aggressively advanced to third on sophomore
Will Simoneit's base hit up the middle, and Simoneit alertly took second base on the throw to third.
Penn then turned to its only reliever of the weekend, and Billy Lescher earned every ounce of his third save on the year. He got swinging strikeouts from the next two batters, then worked around a walk and stranded the bases loaded with a fly ball to left.
The Big Red then got the tying run on base with no out in the ninth on Le Dorze's second base hit in the game, but Lescher got the last two of his five strikeouts over three innings and ended the game on a fielder's choice grounder.
