Baseball Coach Shorty Stoner doesn't have much of a problem with the fact his squad went 1-7-1 in Florida during spring break, and entering a pair of home doubleheaders, the Lions have another problem which Stoner doesn't mind.

"We like to challenge the kids and put them to the test," Stoner said. "All the teams we played in Florida were Top 20 teams -- with one team in the Top 20 in Division II. We have a pleasant problem because we have four people in the running for four spots in the lineup."

The Lions begin the initial homestand of their 1989 season against C.W. Post at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Beaver Field and continue with Navy at 1 Sunday for two more games.

"Scott Biebecker, Brad Bowden, Keith Ripka, and Steve Haffner all deserve spots in the outfield," Stoner explained. "The problem is, I only can use three outfielders."

The squad picked up its only win in Florida against Kentucky, 12-9, after the Wildcats downed Penn State in the first two games of the trip. The Lions also picked up an 11-11 tie against Western Michigan after the game was suspended by darkness in the ninth inning. The Lions closed out the road trip with two losses to Eastern Michigan (6-3, 4-1).

"We were very spotty down South," Stoner said. "We had some errors that led to some runs and we gave them five or six outs by making some errors and we walked too many batters."

Tomorrow's doubleheader will be the first look at C.W. Post for Penn State and Stoner admits he will be going into the game blindly.

"We don't know anything about them except they had trouble with their flight home because of the Eastern Airlines strike," the head coach said.

The Lions return 13 lettermen from last year's squad while losing 10 from last year's 24-26 club. Stoner has co-captains Chris Franks and Ripka in his arsenal to bring the Lions back to Atlantic 10 Conference contention. Ripka's .378 average led the Lions to a second-place finish at the A-10 tournament in the '87 season. Last year, the senior's .307 average gave him fourth place on Penn State's hit list.

Franks will handle the catching duties this season, after starting 42 games last year. The senior from State College was second in doubles last year (11) and third in on-base percentage (.493).

"We have the potential to be a good hitting team," Stoner said. "I think we will have more of a contact-hitting club, because we're playing at a long field and to hit it out of there you have to really hit it a ton."

"We got to move the runners into scoring position to be successful this year," Franks said. "We have about four guys with power, but most of the guys are singles hitters."

Stoner will open with Greg Young (0-1) and Dave Healy (0-2) on the mound for tomorrow's twinbill. Young closed out last season with a 4.37 earned run average, led the team with 17 appearances and ranked third in innings pitched (59.7) despite a 5-5 mark.

Healy started 11 games last year posting a 5-6 record and a 4.97 ERA. He pitched four complete games last season, winning three, and was supported with just 14 runs in his six losses.

"Our pitching staff this year won't strike out a lot of people," Franks said. "Most of our guys aren't power pitchers, but we have a lot of people that will throw strikes."

After suffering 20 losses in their first 26 games last year, the Lions won't let this year's slow start gnaw at them.

"Last year's situation was a little different," Franks said. "The team was a little divided, but we have all that behind us now and we're ready to go into the meat of our schedule."