LEWISBURG -- It may have been cold enough yesterday to put a halt to blood circulation, but the weather could not stop the Penn State baseball team from coming away with a victory.

The Nittany Lions (8-8) finished up their pre-conference schedule by defeating fellow Pennsylvania squad Bucknell (9-14) 8-3 yesterday on Bucknell field. The game was played in 37-degree weather but the Lions were hot.

"I told the team I was incredibly pleased with their spark and their enthusiasm from the opening pitch to the end, and in this kind of weather with a midweek conference game the credit goes to those guys," Penn State baseball coach Joe Hindelang said.

One of the players Hindelang was pleased with was freshman pitcher Tyler Wingerd. So far this season Wingerd had been limited to relief work, posting a 3.60 ERA in six appearances.

He has proven to be a flame that the Lions hope can help them catch fire.

Yesterday, Wingerd followed the game plan Hindelang set forth as he pitched three shutout innings.

He gave up only one hit, struck out three Bison and had a 5-0 lead when he left after the third inning. All of those runs came in a big top of the third inning that started with a walk and ended with a hit by the Lions' catcher.

After getting freshman shortstop Mike Milliron to ground out and fellow freshman Arin Gelletly to fly out to right, Bucknell pitcher Blane Sharpless walked both John Ruhf and Mike DeRenzo. Center fielder Wes Reohr would single to score Ruhf and freshman first baseman Clint Eury would also single, bringing in two runs.

The Bison would then call on pitcher Nick Yeager to settle down the team but it did not work as Penn State catcher Matt Harter would double to right-center to bring in two runs before Adam Warchal lined out to shortstop to end the inning.

Harter hit the ball hard in last weekend's set of games against Navy but many of those hits could not find a hole.

That was not the case yesterday and his double proved to be the winning hit.

"Last weekend at Navy I think I hit three or four balls real hard but they just didn't drop," Harter said.

"Maybe I'll make up for it by getting some cheap ones late in the year."

Harter and Eury were not the only Penn State players to end up driving in two runs against Bucknell.

Left fielder Chris Wright continued to knock in runs, going 3-4 with the two runs batted in.

Even though Wright had three hits, Hindelang said that he did not think Wright did exactly what he wanted to in the game.

"He really only hit that one ball hard," Hindelang said.

"It's quality at bats, it's not so much statistics. If someone went up to him he would not say he had this great day. He always wants excellence, but I was glad to see him sting the ball his last time up."

Penn State's pitchers would make sure that the eight runs the Lions scored would hold up.

Wingerd was followed by Matt Carroll, who in his first collegiate start picked up the win after going four innings and giving up no earned runs (the three runs scored all came following an error).

Heath Vink and Justin Nash pitched the remaining two innings and also gave up no earned runs.

The victory was Penn State's 100th over Bucknell. The Lions hold a 100-33 advantage over the Bison in the all-time series and have defeated Bucknell the last seven times they have met.

The Lions will now ready themselves for this weekend's four-game set against Purdue. Hindelang said that he is happy with what he has seen going into Big Ten competition.

"We're better defensively with the infield," Hindelang said.

"So since I made those changes against Richmond we are better. So now we have played five games in a row where we have played well defensively.

"I feel better now going into the Purdue as to what we are doing here. There is some resemblance of close games, we're not beating ourselves and we are doing some neat things here."