Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Quite a few decisions involving the baseball team were made this weekend. On Friday, Penn State Coach Joe Hindelang and Michigan State Coach Tom Smith decided to move the four-game series between their two schools back a day. The first doubleheader was played yesterday, and the second doubleheader will be played today starting at noon at Beaver Field.

As for yesterday, the Spartans keyed off of strong pitching performances by Stuart Hirschman and Tim Crabtree to take both games of yesterday's doubleheader, as Michigan State (16-4, 4-2 Big Ten) won 9-2 in the first game, then outlasted Penn State (10-12, 0-6) in a wild, 16-15 nine-inning game, two innings past the seven that were scheduled.

Hirschman owned Penn State in the first game, as he went the entire seven-inning distance to get the win, striking out five and walking three. The Lions' two runs both came in the fifth inning as catcher Travis Crayosky tripled to center to score Ryan Wheeler, and outfielder Derek Bochna singled to left to drive in Crayosky.

But the Lions were still down 3-2 at that point as Michigan State had scored three runs in the second off of eventual loser Chris Cisar. In the sixth, the Spartans tore through the meat of the Lions' pitching staff. Michigan State scored six runs in that inning, three of them on a home run by Alex Gagin, off of Chris Church. That would be all that Hirschman and the Spartans would need.

"Their hitters are outstanding, and our pitchers just could not stop them at the crucial times," Hindelang said.

The second game was a wild one. Penn State jumped out to a 6-0 lead after three innings, four of them coming in the third on home runs by Kirk Rentschler, Russ Mushinsky and Pete Foote. In the next two innings, it was a game of follow-the-leader. Penn State matched a five-run fourth inning by the Spartans, and the Lions did it again in the fifth, as both teams scored four in that inning to make the score 15-9.

But then the game became a pitcher's duel between the Lions' Dean Kerns and the Spartans' Tim Crabtree. Both pitchers entered the game in the sixth, but it was Crabtree proving to be the stronger of the pair, as he pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings to shut down the power on Penn State's offense.

"It was hard to adjust," junior Eric Gates said. "We had to go from hitting against a lefthander to a righthander, and he threw a lot harder than the guy before him."

Meanwhile, the Spartans jumped on Kerns to tie the score at 15 to send the game into extra innings. In the top of the ninth, it was Dave Veres who hit a double into centerfield to notch the game-winning RBI for Michigan State.