Recent snowfall and familiar cold temperatures can only mean one thing: it's time for baseball season.

Fortunately, the Penn State baseball team will not have to deal with State College's frigid February temperatures when it opens the 2006 season this Friday on the road against Tulane in New Orleans.

The three-game series against the Green Wave, a team which reached last season's College World Series, will be the first opportunity for second-year head coach Robbie Wine to evaluate his team outdoors in months. The Nittany Lions have spent the winter practicing indoors at Holuba Hall.

As a result, the lineup that takes the field opening night will most likely not be set in stone for the remainder of the 47-game regular season.

"We put some lineups together right now," Wine said. "But there's going to be some juggling."

Senior Lance Thompson, who played in all 55 games last season, will start in left field and likely bat third for now. Fifth-year senior Scott Gummo, who led the Lions in batting average during Big Ten play last season, is slated to play third base.

Junior Matt Cavagnaro and sophomore Brian Ernst, both switch-hitters, will fill the top two spots of the lineup in some fashion. Cavagnaro will start at second base, and Ernst will likely be in right field.

The four, five and six holes are to be filled in some order by Gummo, sophomore catcher Joe Blackburn and designated hitter Matt Lewis, a junior who may also split time with Ernst in right field.

In the seventh spot will be freshman Cory Wine, son of the head coach, a left-handed first baseman.

Eventually, the elder Wine would like to move the left-handed bat between Gummo, Blackburn and Lewis, all right-handed hitters, but he is content on getting the freshman's feet wet lower in the batting order for right now.

Sophomore shortstop Scott Gaffney and junior centerfielder Travis Laird, who Wine said could also possibly be the Lions' leadoff hitter, will round out the batting order in spots eight and nine.

"Our defense is going to be good. Our offense is going to score some runs," Wine said. "I think we'll surprise a lot of people if we stay healthy."

Defensively speaking, Wine projects that the infielders will have an edge over the outfielders at least for this weekend.

"We have some guys who are capable of playing great outfield, but infield is where we're getting all our reps," Wine said. "Fly balls now in Holuba Hall that hit the roof are automatic outs. We don't even have to catch fly balls right now. I'm hoping that first fly ball that goes up, somebody decides to run after it and catch it."

The battle for centerfield starter is "very close," Wine said. The incumbent is Laird, who played 36 games last year, but freshman Garrett Field, a high school teammate of Cory Wine, had a very impressive fall season and may see time in center.

The centerfield position is indicative of the make up of this year's team, a mix of upperclassmen who were at Penn State before Wine and his staff arrived, and this season's class of freshmen, recruited by the second-year head coach.

Despite the different recruiting philosophies that the players may have experienced, Wine said that the mix is one of the team's strengths this season.

"These guys are pulling for one another. We talked about it, and I think that's important to them, too. They're having fun together," Wine said. "We have some freshmen that will contribute this year. The older guys respect them. The other side of that is the freshmen respect the older guys, too. It's a good combination."