Penn baseball fell to the NCAA Tournament’s elimination bracket. So what’s its path forward?

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In its NCAA regional opener, Penn baseball held No. 12 Virginia to only four runs, marking the first time the Cavaliers have scored fewer than five since April 27 against Boston College.

But moral victories mean nothing in the postseason. And with a 4-2 final score on Friday afternoon, the Quakers fell to the elimination bracket at the Charlottesville regional.

The bad news for Penn? It’s an uphill climb from here. The good news? They have done it before — just under two weeks ago in the Ivy League tournament, in fact, when the Quakers emerged from the losers’ bracket to defeat Cornell in the championship.

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Penn will play an elimination game on Saturday against St. John’s (noon, ESPN+). The winner will advance to a Sunday game against the loser of tomorrow’s winners bracket game between Virginia and Mississippi State, with a berth to the regional final on the line. One more loss and the Quakers’ season is over.

Penn’s pitching did its job for the most part against Virginia’s high-octane offense, holding them to six hits —including one home run — to keep the game within reach for all nine innings.

But outside of a brief outburst in the fourth, the Quakers’ bats didn’t back up their pitching. Of Penn’s 11 strikeouts, five Quakers were sat down looking, as they struggled to decode Virginia starter Joe Savino, especially early on in the game.

“That was the most fastballs we’ve taken for strikes in a game since I can remember,” Penn coach John Yurkow said.

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Penn only had one extra-base hit, an RBI double from Davis Baker.

Virginia didn’t issue many free passes, either, with its pitching staff only walking one batter. The Cavaliers had success shutting down Penn’s top bat, third baseman Wyatt Henseler, who was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. It marked the first time all season that the Ivy League player of the year struck out more than twice in a game, and the first time he has been held without a hit since April 21.

“Wyatt is really, really talented,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “... I thought Joe executed the fastball away against him really, really well, just put it on the black. That’s a tough pitch to hit, and he chased it as well. When you’re in a tight ballgame, you’re always looking at the lineup saying, ‘Okay, when is that guy going to come back up? And can we manage it before he comes back up?’

“He’s proven it in that uniform. I just thought these guys did a great job of executing against him, and it certainly had a lot to do with us winning the ballgame.”

Penn illustrated it has the depth to survive the losers’ bracket in the Ivy tournament, after winning three consecutive elimination games to secure the title.

By contrast, St. John’s will be in a bit of uncharted territory after sweeping the Big East tournament in three games. It will also be a quick turnaround for the Red Storm, as Mississippi State walked them off in the 10th inning on Friday night.

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Yurkow announced junior Ryan Dromboski will get the start for Penn on Saturday. Dromboski, the 2023 Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, has a 7.36 ERA this season. But he has past experience pitching in this setting. He started in Penn’s win against Auburn in the 2023 regional, striking out eight while allowing three hits and two runs.

“We have a lot of confidence in Ryan, same type of thing, good competitor. He’s been in this situation before. So hopefully we’ll get a good start out of out of Ryan [Saturday],” Yurkow said. “I’m just hoping that we could put together a little more complete game. And we’re gonna have to score some more runs, and have some better at bats, kind of stack them together.”