PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania baseball team opens the 2023 Liberty Bell Classic Tuesday afternoon against Lafayette with a 3:30 p.m. first pitch at Kamine Stadium in Forks Township, Pa.
 
The Quakers come in just two days removed from an Ivy League series loss against Harvard, the team's first conference series loss since 2019 after winning all seven last season.
 
Penn (10-9) vs. Lafayette (4-20)
Tuesday, March 28 | 3:30 p.m. | WATCH | LIVE STATS
 
The Series: Lafayette
This will mark the 128th meeting between the Quakers and Leopards, with Penn holding a 76-50-1 head-to-head record. Lafayette took the Liberty Bell opener for both teams last season, 9-3, at Meiklejohn Stadium.

Previewing Penn
Penn went 2-2 last week, winning a midweek contest at Lehigh, 7-4 in 10 innings, before dropping its opening Ivy League series to Harvard over the weekend.

Senior Ben Miller hit nearly .600 for the week, notching multiple hits in all four Quaker contests and extending his hitting streak to 14 games. Half of his hits went for extra bases. Freshman Ryan Taylor hit safely in all four games and launched his first two home runs as a Quaker Sunday against the Crimson; he picked up Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors on Monday.

As a team, Penn is hitting .279, recording at least eight hits in 11 of its last 12 games. The pitching staff enters Tuesday with a season ERA of 4.23, with 199 strikeouts against just 87 walks in 164 innings of work.

Looking at the Leopards
Lafayette ended an 11-game losing streak with a doubleheader split against Navy on Sunday; the team was outscored 135-51 during that stretch,

Tuesday marks the home opener for the Leopards, who have played in Louisiana, North Carolina, Long Island, and Western NY during their non-conference schedule.

As a team, they're hitting just .237 with Michael Zarrillo (.329) and Kyle Chmielewski (.271) the only everyday players hitting over .250.

On the mound, the team ERA sits at 9.78 with an opponents' batting average of .320. They've also walked 12 more batters than they've struck out (171 to 159).
 
About the Liberty Bell Classic
The Liberty Bell Classic was conceived in 1992 as a way for local Division I colleges to compete against each other in a tournament as well as an opportunity for the schools to play at Veterans Stadium, then the home of the Phillies. The original eight schools were the University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware, Saint Joseph's, Drexel, Villanova, Temple, West Chester, and LaSalle Universities. In the first championship game, the University of Delaware defeated Villanova University 6-2.

When West Chester University was reclassified as Division II, it was replaced by Rider University and Rider was then in turn replaced by Lehigh University. When Drexel's baseball program was dissolved after the 2003 season, Lafayette University joined the Liberty Bell Classic.

Originally all games were played at Veterans Stadium, but in 2004 the format was changed so games were played at local venues with the championship game being held at Citizens Bank Park.