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Penn baseball makes Ivy League history with its upset of Auburn in the NCAA Tournament

It took 11 innings, but the Quakers picked up their first NCAA regional win since 1990 and became the first Ivy team to beat an SEC squad in the NCAA Tournament.

Penn's Jackson Appel (3) celebrates a two run home run during an NCAA baseball game against Auburn on Friday, June 2, 2023, in Auburn, Ala.
Penn's Jackson Appel (3) celebrates a two run home run during an NCAA baseball game against Auburn on Friday, June 2, 2023, in Auburn, Ala.Read moreStew Milne / AP

Welcome to upset city, population: Quakers.

Penn baseball became the first Ivy League team in history to defeat an SEC team in the NCAA Tournament with its 6-3 defeat of Auburn on Friday night.

The win, which took 11 innings, is Penn’s first in an NCAA regional since 1990. The Quakers advance to the winners’ bracket in the Auburn Regional to face No. 3 seed Samford on Saturday (9 p.m., ESPN+). Samford upset No. 2 Southern Miss, 4-2, in 10 innings earlier Friday.

“Just getting the first one is a big weight off our shoulders, because we had a lot of expectations going into it,” Penn starting pitcher Ryan Dromboski said. “We’re here to win. We are here to try and compete and show everyone what UPenn baseball is all about.”

It was two Penn freshmen who were the heroes in the 11th inning: Jarrett Pokrovsky walked and was driven home by a Ryan Taylor double to break a 3-3 tie. Penn plated two more insurance runs before Penn closer Carson Ozmer shut the door in the bottom of the inning to seal the win.

“A great win for the program tonight,” Penn coach John Yurkow said. “For a moment there, I thought our guys could have given in, and they just kept fighting … they really hung together.”

Stat leaders

Catcher Jackson Appel led the way offensively for Penn, going 3-for-4 with a go-ahead two-run home run in the eighth inning and adding two walks. Third baseman Wyatt Henseler went 2-for-6.

Auburn mustered four hits to Penn’s 11, and left 10 runners on base.

Dromboski pitched 5⅓ innings and struck out eight, surrendering two runs.

“Before the game, I kind of just looked at myself in the mirror and told myself that this is not a selfish outing,” Dromboski said. “There’s a lot of people that go out here and play against an SEC team and really think like, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna try and be the best person in the world,’ and that’s not how you want to play baseball. I really just wanted to fill the zone, let my fielders behind me do the work, and just try to attack. Play for the team.”

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Ozmer, who earned the win, went 3⅓ innings and struck out three, giving up only one hit. He retired the Tigers in order to close out the 11th.

“We played in a hostile environment. Great crowd,” Yurkow said. “I mean, Auburn’s really well-coached. We’ve got some really good bullpen arms. They’re hosting for a reason. I just keep looking back on over the past couple of years that we’ve come into an SEC environment. … A lot of people are up against you. That’s why that was the plan. That’s why, you know, a couple years ago, we’re trying to schedule up, to get ourselves ready for a situation like this.”

What we saw

Penn got on the board first with an RBI double from Henseler. Dromboski’s slider bewildered the Tigers for the first five innings, and Auburn only generated two hits.

The Ivy League Pitcher of the Year got into trouble in the sixth, giving up a pair of walks and a single. Brian Zeldin took over with the bases loaded, and Auburn scored two to take the lead — on a bases-loaded walk by Cooper McMurray and an RBI groundout by Kason Howell.

Penn’s pitchers struggled with command, surrendering eight walks and two hit by pitches, allowing the Tigers to hang around. Two of Auburn’s three runs came from bases-loaded walks.

Appel’s home run in the top of the eighth was the spark the offense needed, putting Penn back in front, 3-2, and bringing the dugout to life. Though Auburn evened the score in the bottom of the inning on its second bases-loaded walk, Ozmer shut out the Tigers the rest of the way.

“I think that was awesome, everything [Appel] did the entire game got us going,” Taylor said. “He scored our first run. And then the home run just amped us up, gave us a chance. We were down, and that really just changed the momentum of the entire game.”

After Taylor’s RBI double gave Penn back the lead, the Quakers turned to small ball. Penn bunted three times in a row, with all three batters reaching safely and two additional runs scoring.

Penn’s victory puts Auburn on the brink of elimination, and the host team’s season came to an end after a 7-2 loss to Southern Miss in the losers’ bracket on Saturday afternoon.

“To get the first one is a massive one,” Dromboski said. “And we still have two more to do, so the job is not finished yet. So no celebrating.”