With the softball team beginning Atlantic-10 play Saturday against defending conference co-champion Temple, it would be relatively easy to look past today's doubleheader with Division II Lock Haven.

Even though the Lady Lions have won five of their last six to improve to 7-16, you won't hear the T-word coming from Coach Sue Rankin's mouth until tomorrow.

"(Lock Haven) is a very good team . . . you can't look at it as 'Well, they're Division II' -- it doesn't make any difference," Rankin said. "We're not even talking about Temple right now . . . it's gotta be one game at a time."

Today's 3 p.m. game was originally scheduled to be played at Lock Haven, but because of poor field conditions the game will be played at Lady Lion Field. However, that doesn't bother Lady Eagle Coach Kim Hasson.

"Since our field conditions are so bad, we haven't been outside . . . that hurts," Hasson said. "But as far as moving (the game) to Penn State, it's not really a disadvantage."

Hasson added Lock Haven would still be the home team and supply the umpires for the games.

In contrast to the Lady Lions' dramatic "Blue" Classic championship victory over Colgate last weekend, Lock Haven (7-5) is coming off two disappointing losses to Shippensburg. In their setbacks, the Lady Eagles tallied just one run on seven hits.

"Offensively, we're doing fine -- but I don't know what happened (against Shippensburg)," Hasson said. "Hopefully, our pitching and hitting will come around."

Penn State pitchers haven't been particularly helpful to teams with batting woes. Dating back to their March 10 matchup with Southwest Missouri, the Lady Lion staff hurled 29 straight scoreless innings. California (Pa.) broke the string last Saturday with a run in the first off starter Kim Corbin.

Led by three shutouts from Dawn Hoover and one each from Leigh Bakun and Corbin, the team has lowered its overall ERA to 2.84 since returning from Texas.

"In Texas, they were trying to out think the batter too much," catcher Marie Hawkins said. "(Now) they're just throwing their pitches."

The Lady Lion bats, however, have not kept pace with the improvement of the pitching. While the hurlers enjoyed their streak of scoreless innings in last weekend's tournament, the Penn State offense suffered through a scoreless streak of its own, failing to produce a run during a stretch of 14 2/3 innings.

"Our weakness . . . at this point is not producing the runs when we need to," Rankin said. "We can't have the bases loaded and no outs and not get a run across."

In preparation for today's matchup, Rankin said the team stressed hitting basics in Tuesday's practice, in hopes of solving their recent lack of run production.

Rankin said today's starter would depend on the status of Corbin, who has been bothered by a strained sternum. Rankin plans to start the right-handed senior either once today and once at St. Joseph's on Sunday, or once at Temple. Lock Haven will start Eileen Morse and Wendy Taylor.

Although Penn State has just one day off before its matchup at Temple following today's twinbill, Rankin said today's games against the Lady Eagles won't be "tuneups" for the A-10 games this weekend.

"Every game you play, you play to win, so it isn't that your looking for one game to be a warmup for another," Rankin said. "You've got to go out there and beat the team you're against at that point . . . we can't talk about Temple and St. Joe's until we get past Lock Haven."

Notes: With the commanding performances over St. Francis, Robert Morris and Colgate last week, Hoover was named the A-10 Pitcher of the Week. Hoover pitched complete game shutouts in her three outings and carried no-hitters into the sixth inning against the Lady Colonials and the Lady Red Raiders.