'Wildcat Weekly' Keeps Abreast of Penn College Athletics

Vol. 4, No. 37

Recent Results/Upcoming Games (Through Sunday, May 8)

Baseball Final overall record: 8-7 Final EPCC regular-season record: 7-5Tuesday, May 3 host Delaware County Community College, L, 3-0; L, 6-4 Saturday, May 7 at EPCC Tournament vs. Northampton, L, 7-4

Softball Final overall record: 9-10 Final EPCC regular-season record: 5-3 Final CCAC regular-season record: 7-3

ArcheryFriday-Sunday, May 20-22 at U.S. Intercollegiate Outdoor Championship (Milledgeville, Ga.)

Men's VolleyballFinal Overall record: 26-1, EPCC champion Final EPCC regular-season record: 14-1

Team TennisFinal overall record: 3-3 Final EPCC record: 3-3

'Cat Tales Baseball The Wildcats faced a must-win situation against Delaware County in order to qualify for the Eastern Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference playoffs in their first season under coach Rees Daneker, but couldn't come through.

After being blanked in the opener, Penn College got a 10-strikeout pitching performance from Travis Fairbanks (Athens) yet still lost. That left their playoff hopes in the hands of Delaware, which needed to sweep two from Bucks County CC one day later in order to put the Wildcats in, and that's exactly what happened.

Facing regular-season EPCC champ Northampton Community College in the playoff semifinals, Northampton grabbed a 5-0 lead in the third inning. The Wildcats battled back with four runs in the top of the seventh, but Northampton added single runs in its half of the seventh and eighth innings to end Penn College's season.

Fairbanks, John Vitovsky (Western Wayne) and Brad Reed (Pine Grove) each went 2-for-4 at the plate for Penn College while Dave Miller (Pen Argyl) had a double and two runs batted in.

During his first season, Daneker saw some good things from his players that should pay dividends down the road.

"The kids played very well. (As a team) we hit .336 and the ERA for our pitching staff was 3.00 or under. We had a lot of kids who came up and were asked to perform and they did," Daneker said, singling out the pitching of Fairbanks and Vitovsky, Derrick Cimini (South Williamsport) and Tyler Cullen (New Fairfield), hitting of Matt Comp (Newport) and Miller and the defensive play of shortstop Jim Woodring (Waynesboro) and second baseman Reed.

Going into the last two games, Comp was hitting .475 and Woodring had 10 runs batted in.

"I've got a good corps of kids coming back (in the fall) and I've got some good recruits coming in, so I'm excited about that," Daneker said. "We had 21 kids and they all worked hard. I'm proud of them all."