Penn baseball holds off Samford in NCAA regional on another historic night

Penn baseball is rolling on — right to the regional final in Auburn.

Riding the momentum of their win over No. 13 seed Auburn on Friday, the Quakers defeated Samford, 5-4, for their 10th victory in a row. This is the first time since the NCAA went to 16 four-team regionals in 1999 that an Ivy League team has won its first two games of an NCAA regional.

“We’re a pretty special group right now,” third baseman Wyatt Henseler said. “Really well-rounded team, a lot of good chemistry. I think this is the closest group I’ve ever been a part of.”

Samford (37-24) moves to an elimination game against Southern Mississippi (41-18) on Sunday (3 p.m., ESPN+). Penn (34-14) awaits the winner of that contest on Sunday night (9 p.m., ESPN+), with a berth in the super regional on the line. Since Penn is currently undefeated and the regional is a double-elimination format, if the Quakers lose on Sunday, they will play an additional game on Monday. The winner of the Auburn Regional will be matched up with the winner of the Clemson Regional.

Penn starter Cole Zaffiro tossed a career-high eight innings. He struck out eight, surrendered four hits, and walked zero — one night after Penn pitchers walked eight Auburn hitters.

“I usually throw a lot of fastballs, and that seemed to work throughout the game,” Zaffiro said.

Zaffiro’s first strikeout of the game was Penn’s 500th as a staff this season, extending a program record.

Penn outhit Samford, 9-4. First baseman Ben Miller went 2-for-4 and had two RBIs. Catcher Jackson Appel was 2-for-5, while Henseler was 2-for 4. Appel and Henseler scored two runs apiece. With his RBI single, Cole Palis (1-for-5) has reached base safely in 37 straight games.

“The biggest thing, honestly, is preparation coming into this weekend,” Henseler said. “I think we’ve been set up really well the past two years, in terms of starting off against really good competition with the big audience, the underdog mentality, and I think we’ve really responded really well and stepped up to the plate there.”

Penn got on the board right away, stringing together three singles from Appel, Henseler, and Miller — the latter of which brought in Appel — followed by a fielder’s choice from Davis Baker to give the Quakers a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the first. The Quakers tacked on another run in the second on Palis’ RBI single to take a 3-0 lead.

“I think we were attacking the fastball pretty well, and we were on time and we had a good approach going into it,” Henseler said. “I was really happy to see the bats come out right away swinging. Found some good holes, found some good breaks.”

Zaffiro was the story of the night. The right-hander, who last pitched May 22 in the Ivy League championship game against Princeton, shut out the Bulldogs for seven innings. The first-team All-Ivy selection also picked up his defense. After the Quakers committed two errors in the sixth to give Samford its first runner in scoring position, Zaffiro rebounded with a strikeout to end the inning.

“I think when in a setting like this, it fits Cole’s demeanor,” Penn coach John Yurkow said. “He’s probably the most even-keeled players I’ve ever coached. Whether he’s getting beat, or we’re winning, the heart rate stays the same, the same level, just super consistent. It’s the kind of kid you want on the mound in a game like this. It was just an awesome performance.”

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Samford started to generate offense in the eighth inning, after Kaden Dreier singled, Garrett Staton hit a two-run home run to deep center field to bring his team within 5-2.

Samford came inches away from at least sending the game into extra innings in the bottom of the ninth. The Quakers sent junior Edward Sarti to close out the game, but he hit two batters and walked another to bring the winning run to the plate. Penn then brought in lefty David Shoemaker, who was making his first appearance on the mound since May 13. Shoemaker induced two groundouts, though Samford scored on the first one to make it 5-3.

The final out came on a tag play at third base. A poor throw drew Miller off the first-base bag, allowing another run to score. But Miller, seeing pinch runner Aaron Walton take a big turn off third base, fired a strike to Henseler, who applied the tag on Walton, who was diving back to third. It was close enough call to be reviewed. The call was upheld and the Quakers are a win away from winning the regional.

“Definitely not the way we drew it up, the way that thing ended,” Yurkow said. “But at the end of the day, it’s a win, so we’re excited we’re 2-0.”

If Penn wins on Sunday, it will mark the first time in program history the Quakers have earned a bid to an NCAA Super Regional.

“We’re a really tight group of guys, and we’re just having fun playing baseball, and we’re playing our best baseball in June so far,” Zaffiro said. “And we’re just going to try to keep that going.”

Penn picked up its 34th victory of the year, breaking the program single-season record set by the 2022 team. ... The Quakers ran their winning streak to 10 games, the longest for the program since winning 11 in a row from March 27 to April 6, 2014. ... Henseler recorded an extra-base hit — an RBI double in the fifth — for the 13th straight game.