When Penn State third basemen Arin Gelletly stepped into the batter's box in the bottom of the ninth inning yesterday at a cold Beaver Field, he had been having kind of a rough day.

Hitting the entire day as a right hander, his weaker side, the switch-hitting Gelletly had gone 0-for-4 and had continued a pretty inglorious streak of being hitless for a season that is more than a month old.

But the beauty of baseball is its bottomless well of chances for redemption and yesterday in extra innings against Cornell, when his team needed him most, Gelletly came through and wiped away a month's worth of frustration with one swing of the bat.

Cornell had played the Lions evenly through eight and a half innings, 1-1, in game one of a doubleheader that was only scheduled for seven innings because it was a doubleheader.

But after struggling to find any offense all day, Penn State finally managed to load the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

And up stepped Gelletly.

It was his first chance to bat lefty all day after the Big Red's excellent left-handed starter Tad Bardenwerper gave way to a right handed reliever, Conor Kelly.

Because it was his first time batting left handed, Gelletly felt it would probably be a good idea to take a couple of pitches.

"I had taken all of batting practice right handed and had only hit right handed to that point," Gelletly said. "When you switch over to left, your depth perception is a little off for a few pitches."

So much for that.

Kelly's first offering to Gelletly was a fastball across the heart of the plate that Gelletly sent screaming into the right field gap.

Matt Harter scores, game over, Lions win 2-1, Gelletly's the hero.

"It was huge for him," Penn State coach Joe Hindelang said.

"He actually hit a homerun against Miami, but the game got rained out. He's been great in the field for us this year and I was really happy for him to get a big hit."

So was the senior third baseman.

"It's been frustrating so far," he said of his search for the elusive first hit. "I've been hitting the ball hard, but it was being caught. Having the homerun against Miami cancelled sort of hurt. I wasn't really sure when the first one would come."

It came yesterday and it couldn't have come at a better time. Had Gelletly not come through and Cornell came back to win, it could have spelled disaster.

Penn State was determined to avenge last year's sweep at the hands of Cornell and losing the first game of the twinbill could have sent the Lions into a tailspin.

"I couldn't even tell you what would have happened if we lost that first game," Gelletly said. "Coach would have been furious and you never know how it could've affected the second game."

Now, coupled with their 9-1 win in game two of the afternoon with Cornell, the Lions can go into conference play this weekend above .500 and on a positive note.

"Now I can cancel my appointment with CAPS," Hindelang said jokingly afterwards.

All thanks to Arin Galletly.