ALTOONA -- Even with an 11-year interlude, the Penn State baseball team picked up where it left off in the Penn State-Pittsburgh rivalry.

The Nittany Lions (14-9, 2-2 Big Ten) won, 9-0, in front of 3,584 fans at Blair County Ballpark in Altoona, in a series in which they now own an 82-38-1 advantage over Pitt (13-12, 1-6 Big East).

While tentative plans to continue the rivalry next year at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, this year's contest proved to be a better experience for Penn State.

"It was a great opportunity for the Altoona group to let us come down here and play for the Pitt and Penn State rivalry," Penn State coach Robbie Wine said, "and I hope we can keep it going."

Lions pitcher Steve Cline (3-1) brought on most of the Panthers' misery. The sophomore left-hander, who is vying for the fourth spot in the rotation, put in a dominating performance with his first career shutout.

Cline faced only 30 batters -- just three more than the minimum -- with only 100 pitches. Cline matched Alan Stidfole's shutout on Sunday for Penn State's first back-to-back shutouts since June 26, 2000.

"I stuck to my game plan to try to keep hitters off balance," said Cline, who had just two strikeouts and one walk. "I was in pretty good command with my stuff tonight."

Pitt, on the other hand, had little command of any aspect of its game. In the second inning after Scott Gummo got a double, both Brian Ernst and Jim Leitgeb reached on throwing errors by Pitt shortstop Jimmy Mayer.

The Lions scored two unearned runs in that inning, and five total, against a team that committed three errors and hit five batters -- as many hit batters as Pitt had hits.

"We took advantage of some mistakes," Wine said. "That's a sign of a good team. ... If you minimize mistakes, minimize errors and mental errors defensively, and don't walk people, you have a chance to win."

In the third inning, with Matt Lewis and Gummo on base, Penn State catcher Aaron Greenfield broke the game open with a deep opposite-field home run that landed under the roller coaster past the right-field wall.

"It was a full-count fastball, and I was looking away," Greenfield said. "That's what I got. When I hit it, I feel like I'm a pro athlete because the fans just went nuts. It was very exciting."

With Cline making quick work of the Panthers, Pitt didn't have an opportunity to play to its advantage of speed. Coming into the game, the Panthers had swiped 63 bases in 24 games with leadoff hitter Ben Copeland leading the team (20).

Copeland and preseason Big East Player of the Year Jim Negrych were just 2-for-8, while the basepaths turned out to be trouble against Cline, who induced two double plays.

"He was throwing off-speed pitches for strikes," Pitt coach Joe Jordano said. "He had an excellent change-up. He doesn't overpower you. We were beating the ball into the ground. ... We didn't do a particularly good job driving the ball."

Penn State did strike out 11 times and, for the second time this season, had more runs than hits.

Wine said he didn't like his team's record, but he did like how his team is playing. From here his team will be playing eight straight Big Ten games in the next two weeks.