Ivy League Baseball Championship Preview: Columbia vs. Penn

WEST HAVEN, Conn. (Interstat) — Columbia and Penn meet Saturday afternoon in the Ivy League baseball championship at a neutral site, each seeking to cap a season of inconsistency with a title.

Columbia (14-23-1) finished the regular season at Yale with a 12-3 loss Friday, dropping its third straight game. Penn (19-20) fell 7-4 to Brown on Friday, its fourth loss in six games.

The Quakers hold a 2-1 edge in the season series, winning both ends of a doubleheader at Columbia on April 4 (Interstat) — 9-5 and 9-8 (Interstat) — before the Lions won the series opener 21-11 on April 3.

Columbia’s Evan Kleinhans will be a key arm out of the bullpen. The right-hander allowed two earned runs over 3⅓ innings Friday against Yale, but he tossed a complete-game, two-hit shutout with five strikeouts over 8⅓ innings in a 2-0 win at Cornell on May 2. Kleinhans has a 5-2 record in his past seven appearances, including three scoreless outings.

Penn counters with Marty Coyne, who took the loss Friday despite striking out seven over 5⅔ innings against Brown, allowing five runs on five hits. The right-hander has struggled of late, giving up four earned runs over six innings in a 13-9 loss to Brown on May 1, but he threw five shutout innings in a 13-7 win at Harvard on April 25.

Columbia’s offense has been erratic, scoring 21 runs in one game against Penn but only three in its last contest. Penn’s lineup has been more consistent, averaging nearly six runs per game in its past five.

The championship is a single-game format. First pitch is set for 2 p.m. at the neutral site.