The Penn State baseball team has preached winning games early in the Big Ten season, rather than waiting until the last week to make a run at the championship.

So the second weekend of Big Ten conference games against perennial conference leader Minnesota (16-12, 5-3 Big Ten) seems to be the perfect time to win valuable games and make some waves in the conference.

The four-game series starts today at 4 p.m. when Penn State (16-12, 5-3) travels to Siebert Field to take on the Golden Gophers. The two teams will engage in a doubleheader tomorrow, starting at 2 p.m. and will finish up the four-game trip on Sunday at 2 p.m.

Penn State and Minnesota are currently wedged in a four-way tie for second place in the Big Ten with Michigan and Ohio State, all four are a game behind the Spartans of Michigan State.

Penn State baseball coach Joe Hindelang always looks forward to playing Minnesota because the Gophers are a program that he's always admired.

"I have the utmost respect for their program," Hindelang said. "But I'm just trying to get ready for the first pitch [today]."

With the season half way over, the Penn State pitching staff has proven to be quite formidable against Big Ten opponents and Hindelang expects nothing less from his upperclassmen, Jim Farrell, Aaron Tressler and Clayton Hamilton this weekend.

Despite the fact that Farrell and Hamilton's ERAs are both over six, they have pitched well at times, and some of the runs Hindelang takes credit for from poor coaching decisions.

"Farrell pitched exceptionally well last week," Hindelang said. "I made a bad decision by not bringing in Eury late in the game."

Hindelang has also praised Hamilton, who returned last week after being benched earlier in the season. He insists that the senior from Beaver Falls is back on the "main track" and doesn't look like he's losing too much steam.

The Gophers bring in one of the most intimidating lineups in the Big Ten. They are led by senior center fielder Sam Steidl, who leads the Big Ten with a .400 batting average and a .463 on-base percentage. Last weeks Big Ten player of the week, Steidl, also leads his team with 46 hits from the leadoff spot.

While Penn State will throw all righties this weekend, the Golden Gophers will start a lefty today in Glen Perkins. Because of Perkins, Lance Thompson will sit for today's game and freshman Matt Lewis will replace him in left. Today's game will mark the eighth time that Lewis gets the nod.

Despite the fact that this weekend's series is extremely critical as both teams are jockeying for position in the conference, Hindelang refuses to look at the standings, instead he just wants his team to go out and play solid baseball.

"All I ask the team to do is concentrate on the next pitch," Hindelang said. "No one game is any more important than any other Big Ten game."