PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania baseball team welcomes Columbia to Meiklejohn Stadium to close out the regular season. The Quakers enter the matchup 9-9 against the Ivies this year and will need a sweep as well as a pair of Yale losses next weekend to clinch a berth in the Ivy League Championship Series on May 18 and 19.
 
GAMES 39-41: PENN (21-17, 9-9 Ivy) vs. COLUMBIA (18-19, 12-6 Ivy)
Friday – 1 p.m. | Saturday – 11:30 a.m. (DH) | Meiklejohn Stadium
Live Stats: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3 | ESPN+: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3
 
PROJECTED STARTERS
Game 1: Christian Scafidi (5-1, 2.92 ERA, 61.2 IP, 53 K)
Game 2: Mitchell Holcomb (5-1, 3.86 ERA, 58.1 IP, 43 K)
Game 3: John Alan Kendrick (0-2, 3.29 ERA, 52.0 IP, 43 K)
 
SERIES HISTORY
Friday's series opener will be the 263rd meeting between Columbia and the Quakers. Penn holds the series edge, with a 133-126-3 record against the Lions dating back to an 11-6 win in 1886. Columbia is currently 12-6 in Ivy League play and tied with Harvard for first place.
 
NEWS & NOTES
*For the fifth consecutive week, Penn enters an Ivy League series with the second-best batting average in the nation. The Quakers are batting .334 on the season, the third-highest team average in program history.
 
*Penn ranks second in the nation with a .495 on-base percentage. The Quakers lead the Ivy league in hits (498), walks (195), and batters hit by pitch (52).
 
*Matt O'Neill is closing out his Penn career with a bang. The senior is batting a team-high .410 and ranks second in the nation with his .538 on-base percentage. O'Neill has tied the program record with 39 walks and ranks seventh in the nation with 1.05 walks per game.
 
*Penn's 498 hits this season are a program record and 36 more than the previous mark set in 2010. The Red and Blue rank sixth in the nation in knocks.
 
*Nearly a quarter of the Quakers' hits this season are doubles. Penn ranks sixth in the nation with 104 doubles and leads the nation in doubles per game (2.74). The Quakers also rank seventh in the nation with 20 triples and seventh in the nation with a .495 slugging percentage.
 
*The Quakers do well to take advantage of their ability to get men on base and in scoring position. Averaging 8.8 runs per game, Penn ranks third in the nation and leads the Ivy League in scoring.
 
*This weekend, Sean Phelan will close out a historic career. The senior holds the program record for appearances (165) and starts (164), has the second-most hits in program history (197), the third-most doubles (47), and is tied for fifth with 111 RBI. This year, he leads the Ivy League in hits (62) and doubles (18).
 
*Scafidi has turned it up in his last four starts, reaching eight innings pitched in every game and tossing a complete game in his last outing against Cornell. In those last four starts, he is 3-0 with a 0.81 ERA after 33.1 innings pitched tallying 31 K's and just six walks. He has a team-low 2.92 ERA and leads the Quakers in innings pitched (61.2), strikeouts (53), and WHIP (1.21).
 
*Peter Matt is having a career year this season. The junior right fielder has more hits this season (60) than he has in his freshman and sophomore years combined (54). He leads the Ivy League with 44 runs and his 34 RBI are a career-high for the right fielder. Matt leads Penn with 13 stolen bases and had just one steal entering his junior year. His six triples are tied for the program record and rank him seventh in the nation in three-baggers.
 
NUMBERS OF NOTE
2 • Penn players with 60+ hits: Phelan (62) and Matt (60).
 
4 • 20-win seasons in W. Joseph Blood Head Coach John Yurkow's six years in charge of the Quakers.
 
5 • Penn players with over 50 hits this season.
 
5-1 • Record for starting pitchers Mitchell Holcomb and Scafidi.
 
6 • Triples for Matt this season, tying the program record for triples in a season.
 
8 • Home runs for freshman Josh Hood, Penn's leader in dingers.
 
9 • Players with batting averages above .300 and over 50 at-bats.
 
13 • Times O'Neill has caught runners stealing, the leader among Ivy League catchers.
 
18 • Doubles for Phelan, the top mark in the Ivies.
 
39 • Walks for O'Neill, most in the Ivies and tied for the program record.
 
43 • RBI by Craig Larsen, the top mark by a Penn player this season.
 
53 • Strikeouts for Scafidi, most among the Penn pitching staff.
 
62 • Hits for Phelan this season, most in the Ivies.
 
104 • Doubles for the Quakers this season, tied for second-most in program history.
 
165 • Career appearances for Phelan, most in the history of Penn baseball.
 
302 • RBI for the Quakers this season, second-most in program history.
 
336 • Runs scored by Penn this season, fourth-most in program history.
 
498 • Hits for Penn this season, a program record and sixth-most in the nation.