It's snowing in State College, and the Penn State baseball team is getting ready for their third series of the season.

The obvious problem? The baseball team can't practice outside. They're stuck inside the Multi-Sport facility or Holuba Hall, struggling with poor lighting and tight spaces.

And so far, it has shown.

"At the plate we've been poor," Penn State skipper Joe Hindelang said. "Our defense is excellent and our pitching has been fair to excellent, we just need to improve our hitting."

But Hindelang and his players are looking to open those all-important floodgates this weekend when they face Virginia in a three-game series. On Saturday for Penn State, Pete Yodis (1-1, 4.35 ERA) takes on Brendan Creswell (1-0, 1.00 ERA) in the first game, and Dan McCall will get his first start of the year in the later part of the double-header, going up against Joe Koshansky (1-0, 2.57 ERA). The Sunday game will start at 1 p.m. and feature Justin Nash (0-0, 2.97 ERA) vs. Dan Street, Jr.

Street was named ACC pitcher of the week after throwing seven scoreless innings and striking out six while allowing just two hits in a 6-2 win over Navy. The Cavaliers swept the Midshipmen in their first action of the season, winning by a combined 20-run margin.

Despite the Cavalier's explosive offensive output, it's their pitching that Hindelang is most impressed with.

"They had something like four walks in 30 innings," he said. "They had a guy pitch a complete game, other guys went seven innings."

And when Navy batters did manage to catch up to the pitch, the Virginia defense was there. They are fielding at a .980 clip.

Still, Penn State third baseman Chris Wright thinks this will be the week when the team finally starts to hit.

"We've been doing all sorts of drills this week," he said. "Guys are getting more comfortable. It's really a matter of translating it to the field."

Second baseman John Richmond says hitters need to be smarter at the plate.

"The coaches had us work on two-strike counts," he said. "We also worked on our short game, moving runners along with sac-bunts."

Centerfielder Zack Smithlin, who is probably the only mainstay in a very deep outfield, says the guys know they need to pick it up.

"We're hitting at like a .200 average as a team," he said. "That's just not good enough. Hitting was so important to us last year, and this year certain guys are hitting. We have to do it as a team if we want to win."