In a sport where close is not good enough, the Penn State baseball team finds itself trying to tweak a few things to start winning consistently.

The Nittany Lions (11-14, 2-6 Big Ten) will get their chance to put all of the game facets together when they host St. Bonaventure (10-5, 5-3 Atlantic-10) today at 3 p.m. on Beaver Field.

Penn State is coming off a tough four-game weekend series against perennial Big Ten power Ohio State. The Buckeyes flexed their muscles by scoring a bunch of runs and also shutting down the Lions at the plate.

"Their third and fourth pitchers in the series, the freshman (Scott) Lewis, who was a high round draft choice, and the upperclassman (Nate) Smith were awesome," Penn State baseball coach Joe Hindelang said. "Good pitching shuts down hitting and those two guys did it."

Those two pitchers helped the Buckeyes to three of the four games they played against the Buckeyes last weekend. It was the second straight disappointing performance for the Lions against a conference opponent and it left them tied with Iowa for last place.

There is still hope for Penn State however, as all but two teams in the conference have three or more losses. Also, the Lions have played their Big Ten opponents close in many games even though they have not come away with the win most of the time.

"We're 2-6 in the Big Ten right now but we are extremely close to being one of the top teams," pitcher Mike Watson said. "We've played two tough teams in Purdue and Ohio State and we easily could have won three of those games that we lost. I think we are right on the brink of having a good year so I think everyone has to tweak a few things and hopefully we'll get everything together and win some games."

The Lions will have to tweak their game against a St. Bonaventure team that has played Penn State tough in the past. Last season the Bonnies put a six spot on the scoreboard in the top of the second inning to take a 6-0 lead.

The Lions came back but did not go ahead until the sixth inning and in the end the score was only 11-7 in favor of the Lions.

"Any time you are playing a midweek game it is tough to stay focused," said Watson, who played with St. Bonaventure center fielder Dan Dennison this summer. "You sometimes tend to look past the midweek teams and look to the Big Ten series on the weekend and I think we realized last year playing St. Bonaventure that they are going to come out and battle us."

The Lions will have to come out ready to play today if they want to find themselves in the win column.

"We need this game to get back on track," catcher Matt Harter said. "This one is real big, especially with the way we played this weekend."