The Lions escaped with the weekend split on a RBI double by senior third baseman Scott Gummo in the ninth inning of yesterday's game.

Much like his teammate, James Leitgeb did on Friday night, Gummo stepped to the plate with the chance to win the game and delivered the hit. Gummo drove the ball off the right-center field wall, which allowed junior Matt Cavagnaro to score easily from second. Gummo's knock gave shortstop Scott Gaffney -- who relieved Matt Orgodnik in the eighth -- the win.

"I was looking for anything to come across the plate that I could drive," Gummo said. "I wanted to avoid anything on the outside corner."

Gummo's hit was the last of a weekend full of clutch hits. Before Leitgeb even got a chance to be the hero on Friday, it was Travis Laird's long at-bat in the ninth that allowed Penn State to send it to extra innings.

Most of those clutch hits came with two outs and in the second to last inning of the game. Traditionally in baseball the seventh -- or two-inning prior to the final inning -- is a swing inning and Penn State won three of four this weekend, battling back from three runs down heading in tot he seventh in each of those games.

In game one, catcher James Spinelli drove home two runs to tie the game at 8-8. In the nightcap of Saturday's double header, Lance Thompson doubled home Cavagnaro and Brian Ernst to tie the game at 4-4. And in yesterday's game, freshman Garret Field knocked in the final two runs of the inning to finish a two-inning come back.

"One hit leads to another and it snowballs after that. It's contagious," Penn State coach Robbie Wine said. "The whole team is starting to come around [offensively]. They're not trying to do too much and they're not trying to pull out side pitches."

Once again it was the new-look Lions' line-up that put runs on the board like they were going out of style. Penn State has averaged nine runs per game since posting this line-up last Sunday against Iowa.

Yesterday they showed just how potent they could be. The Lions tallied 20 hits as a team, including a career-high five from Ernst. Wine conceded that he was thinking of switching the line-up after the Lions only put one-run on the board through five innings. But, his patience paid-off as they scored nine runs in the final three innings, included the four-run seventh.

"One through nine we can all hit the ball...and I know if someone's on base and I get intentional walked, I am comfortable with Lance [Thompson] behind me...[me and Thompson] really protect each other," Gummo said. "We feel pretty solid as a team with this line up."

Bash'em.

Lost in the craziness of the weekend split was the tremendous weekend of Michigan State's junior leftfielder Ryan Basham. Basham went 10-15 with six RBIs, six runs scored, four walks, and recorded zero strikeouts. That's right, Zero strikeouts.

Yer Outta here.

During the final inning of yesterday's game, Penn State pitching coach Jason Bell was tossed-out of the game for arguing ball and strikes with home plate umpire Mike Rose.

"My emotions just got up," Bell said. "There were some borderline pitches but I know that [Rose] was doing his best back there, and he did a pretty good job all day. I just let my emotions get the best of me."

In the same inning, Gummo began arguing with the same umpire as Bell, after he was called back to the batter's box for not avoiding a pitch that had hit him. Gummo was restrained by Wine and third base coach Eric Folmer, and then he took his anger out on the baseball on the game winning pitch.

• Gaffney cleans up for tired pen