Things were just starting to come together.
On the eve of its Big Ten opener against Purdue, the Penn State baseball team dropped both games of a doubleheader at Cornell yesterday. The Nittany Lions lost the first game 4-3 and couldn't rebound in the second game, suffering a 5-2 loss to the Big Red.
In the bottom of the seventh inning of the first game, Penn State (5-9) held a narrow 3-2 lead and freshman left-hander Steve Cline (0-2) was looking to close out the game for the Lions when he ran into trouble.
The Big Red (6-7) manufactured one run on a single up the middle to tie the game at three with one out, and had two runners on base when the Lions pulled Cline in favor of freshman right-hander Sean Stidfole.
Stidfole got the next batter to fly out, but the following batter, Cornell junior Ned VanAllan, ripped a pitch to left field and freshman Garrett Wasson charged home, trying for the winning run.
Penn State senior left fielder Wes Reohr fielded the ball and whipped it to junior catcher Matt Harter at the plate. The umpire ruled that Wasson slid in under Harter's tag, and Penn State baseball coach Joe Hindelang's argument for the out fell on deaf ears.
Penn State junior right-hander Jared Hopewell got his first start of the season and pitched 3.1 innings for the Lions. Hopewell allowed two earned runs, six hits and walked one in the start before Cline relieved him.
In the second game, the Big Red put two runs on the board in the fourth and fifth innings to stretch its lead to 5-0 before Penn State advanced a runner past second base.
In his third appearance of the season -- his first as a starter -- Penn State sophomore right-hander Tyler
Wingerd surrendered three runs in four innings, while freshman left-hander Alan Stidfole gave up two more in just one-third of an inning.
After two wins against the Delaware Blue Hens last weekend in which the Lions put 20 runs on the board, the Penn State bats were silenced by the Big Red pitching staff. Cornell surrendered only nine hits and four walks in the two games.
"There was very little hard contact," Hindelang said of the Lions hitting woes. "I'm very disappointed in the way we approached the games today."
Reohr, a tri-captain who had three of the Lions hits in the series, said that the trip could be more of a set back than a bump in the road.
"It's a little bit of a setback because everybody on the team knows we're capable of beating Cornell," Reohr said.
While the bats may have been full of holes, the Lions gloves were equally problematic in the second game. Penn State committed three errors, tied for its highest single-game total of the season.
Hindelang described the team situation as "very tenuous" following the game. Penn State opens its Big Ten schedule on Friday at Purdue (10-5), which figures to be one of the top contenders for the conference title this season. Hopewell said the upcoming contest with the Boilermakers might have had some players looking past Cornell.
"We're kind of anxious to get into the Big Ten," Hopewell said. "I'm not saying we were. There may have been a little bit, but as for me, I got myself ready to go."
