PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania baseball team used big innings in the first and fifth and it proved to be enough as the top-seeded Quakers beat second-seeded Harvard to start Sunday play at the inaugural Ivy League Tournament, 10-7.
With the win, Penn (31-14) remains undefeated in the ILT and has advanced to the championship game against Princeton, which was a 10-3 winner over Harvard in Sunday afternoon's elimination game. The Quakers and Tigers will meet Monday at 11 a.m.; if Penn wins the game they will represent the Ivy League at the NCAA Championship,while if Princeton wins the two teams will play a winner-take-all second game Monday afternoon to determine the NCAA bid.
QUAKER NOTEMEAL
* W. Joseph Blood Head Coach
John Yurkow picked up his 200th career win; he's the third coach in program history to reach the mark, joining Walter Cariss and Bob Seddon
* The Quakers notched at least 10 hits for the sixth straight games and seventh time in their last eight. Overall, the team's notched 24 games with 10 or more hits this season.
*
Jarrett Pokrovsky finished 3-for-5 for the second straight game, raising his season average to .300. In his last five games, he's hitting .455 (10/22) with seven RBI and seven runs scored.
*
Carson Ozmer picked up his sixth save of the year with two perfect innings, his longest outing in his last 15 games.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Much like Friday's game against Columbia, Penn wasted no time getting on the board. With two outs and two on,
Davis Baker roped a single back through the box to score
Jackson Appel from second.
Jarrett Pokrovsky followed that up with a poke ino shallow right field that Harvard first baseman Logan Bravo couldn't snare, scoring
Wyatt Henseler. Baker advanced to third on the play and scored one batter later when
Ryan Taylor stroked a single into center.
Harvard threatened in the top of the second, putting runners on first and second with just one out. However,
Ryan Dromboski struck out Zach Brown and induced Gio Colasante to ground out to first to get out of the mini-jam. The Crimson got on the board in the third, however, when Ben Rounds took Dromboski deep to right center.
Penn loaded the bases in the bottom half of the third,
Ben Miller and Davis hitting back-to-back, one-out singles and Taylor drawing a walk after a Potrovsky fly out. However, after a meeting at the mound Harvard pitcher Jay Driver struck out
Seth Werchan on three pitches.
Perhaps inspired by the K, the Crimson immediately pounced in the fourth. Peter Messervy led off with a walk, and then Hunter Baldwin took the first pitch into the right-field corner. Two batters later, Colasante drove a sacrifice fly to deep right-center that scored Messervy and made the score 3-2.
Harvard chased Dromboski in the fifth. Rounds (single) and Bravo (walk) got on base to start things, and then after a fly out Will Jacobsen walked to load the bases. Messervy then drove a ball to the center-field wall that Werchan couldn't catch, driving in Rounds and Bravo and giving the Crimson its first lead of the day at 4-3. With runners on second and third and just one out,
Eli Trop came on in relief and struck out Baldwin and Brown to prevent further damage.
Penn responded in an adventurous bottom half, chasing Driver in the process. Henseler started the inning innocently enough with a double to left-center; from there it got weird. Miller got on base when Colasante's throw from short was in the dirt and Bravo couldn't control it, which also allowed Henseler to advance a base. Baker struck out, but Pokrovsky singled to left to score Henseler and tie things at 4-4. Taylor struck out after that, but then Werchan hustled down the line on a bouncer to first and barely beat Driver to the base, loading them up.
Asa Wilson then hit a grounder to Berger and the Crimson third baseman attempted to tag Pokrovsky; he missed, then was late with his throw to first.
That marked the end of the day for Driver, who was replaced by Harrison Stovern.
Cole Palis greeted him with a grounder through the right side that Baldwin dove and stopped. He got on his knees and threw to first, but Stovern had stopped running to the bag so nobody was there and the ball skipped to the Penn dugout while Pokrovsky and Werchan scored. Appel then hit a first-pitch single to center, scoring Wilson and Palis. In all, it was six runs–five of them with two outs–in an inning when only three balls left the infield.
Suddenly down by five, Harvard got three of the runs back in the top of the sixth. The Crimson loaded the bases with one out and then Jacobsen fisted a single over first base that scored Colasante and Rounds. Ed Sarti came on in relief after the Crimson loaded the bases a second time with two outs, walked Baldwin to bring home another run but then struck out Brown to keep the Quakers in front.
Penn scored once in the seventh to go back in front by three, at 10-7. Werchan led off with a double, advanced to third on a Wilson flyout, then scored on a bang-bang play at the plate after Palis ripped a grounder to second and Baldwin threw home. Meanwhile, the combination of Sarti and
Carson Ozmer shut the door on the Crimson over the final three innings.
Up Next
Penn will play third-seeded Princeton on Monday morning at 11 a.m. If the Quakers win that game, they will be the Ivy League's representative in to the NCAA Championship. If they lose, a winner-take-all game will occur immediately afterward on Monday afternoon.
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