The Penn State baseball club won two of three in its series against the University of Virginia club team during the weekend at Beaver Field.

In Saturday's doubleheader the Lions edged the Cavaliers 5-4, but they dropped the second game 1-0. Yesterday, the Lions recovered offensively to dominate the Cavs 12-6.

Mike Ridge set the tone in the early going for the Lions in Saturday's opener when he struck out the side in the first inning. In the bottom half of the first, third baseman Nick Baldasari doubled on the first pitch he saw, and designated hitter Byron Cotter smashed a long drive into left center to score Baldasari.

The Lions added another run in the second inning when right fielder Josh Winfrey scored off of second baseman Reggie Diaz's double.

The Cavaliers tied the game on a two-out rally in the fourth inning by ripping four straight singles and scoring twice. The Lions regained the lead in the bottom of the fourth with some solid hitting from the bottom of the line-up as Diaz tripled and scored on center fielder Justin Callahan's sacrifice fly to put the Lions up 3-2.

Virginia tied the game again in the top of the sixth, but Winfrey made the play of the game by gunning out a potential go-ahead run at the plate with a terrific throw from right field. Callahan delivered for the Lions in the bottom of the sixth with a RBI double to make it 4-3 in favor of Penn State. Ridge stepped off the mound in the top of the seventh when the Cavaliers loaded the bases and scored the tying run, but Winfrey, who came in from right field to pitch, stopped Virginia cold.

"It was my job. I am not really a pitcher, but they bring me in when there is a tight spot like today," Winfrey said.

Penn State won the game without a hit in their last at bat, as third baseman John Dutton walked with the bases loaded to give the Lions the 5-4 victory.

The second game of the doubleheader was a true pitcher's duel. Cavalier pitcher Jon Wohlers and Penn State's Colin Murphy went six scoreless innings before Virginia broke through with a RBI triple that glanced off the glove of diving right fielder Jason Bunda. Murphy went the distance and struck out 10 batters, but it was Wohlers who stole the show by giving up just one hit in the complete game win.

"I just tried to hit my spots," Wohlers said. "I tried to get a lot of ground-outs, and I was able to change my curveball up a lot to keep them off-balance."

The Lions returned to form offensively yesterday. Left fielder Aaron Thompson and first baseman Colin Murphy led the attack by combining for four hits and six RBIs. Bill Lippert notched the win on the mound by going five innings and yielding just one run.

"My curveball was working, and I got a lot of ground-outs," Lippert said. "The defensive played well today, and once I found my groove I was good from there."

The Lions improve to 10-7 after this weekend's series with Virginia, but they know that there is still a lot of room for improvement.

"I am not confident that we are ready to put all the pieces together," Penn State club baseball head coach Jason O'Neill said. "Our pitching has been there every game, but our bats and gloves haven't begun to correlate."

The Lions will travel north next weekend to face Buffalo and Syracuse in conference games.

"To meet our goal we are probably going to have to go undefeated up there," O'Neill said. "It is just a matter of all our guys coming together."