Sudden death isn't a term used in softball, but with the Big Ten's best three pitchers taking the circle this weekend at Penn State, one run may be all it takes to put away a crucial conference victory.

The Penn State softball team will need a solid effort from its pitching staff, led by ace Missy Beseres, this weekend if it wants to steal wins from two top teams in the conference, Michigan State and Michigan.

Michigan State pitcher Leslie Noel entered the week with a 1.15 ERA, but she will be a tune-up in comparison to Jennie Ritter of Michigan, who leads the conference with an ERA of 0.90. The Lions will face both pitchers when they play the Spartans (32-14, 8-2 Big Ten) at 2 p.m. today before finishing up the series at noon tomorrow. Michigan (28-11, 6-2) will come to Happy Valley at noon on Sunday for a doubleheader.

Today's game, originally scheduled for 6 p.m., was moved up to try to beat the weather, as evening thunderstorms threaten.

Before the practice yesterday, the eve of what might be Penn State's hardest home weekend of the year, a few members of the team showed off their overall athleticism, throwing a football around the outfield.

They all appeared comfortable and unworried about the Michigan opponents.

Every ounce of the team's tension was reserved for the mouth of Penn State coach Robin Petrini, who was tight-lipped about the upcoming homestand.

"We're taking it one game at a time, and that's all that matters to us," Petrini said.

Petrini said she had not yet looked at the statistics for either team and was focused primarily on making sure Penn State (28-11, 3-7) plays its game.

"Statistics get thrown out the window when you play Big Ten games," Petrini said.

"You look at statistics for tendencies, but they're not an indicator of what's what."

In one-run games so far this year, Penn State is 7-3 and 0-1 in Big Ten play. In order to win these squeakers, the Lions will need to play and defend against small ball effectively and rely less on home runs.

So far, during Big Ten play, that has been a difficult task.

Petrini would not comment on potential run scoring strategies, but the team practiced defensive positioning on steals and suicide squeezes yesterday.

Danielle Kinley, Leigh Murray and Jenn Reynolds have been making most of the noise in Big Ten matchups. Through the Lions' first 10 conference games, the three have combined for 18 of the team's 21 RBI, and all of their eight home runs. The team will need to hit solidly through the lineup in order to get scoring opportunities against the talented pitching staffs.

With nine runs in Wednesday night's game, though, Petrini said she believes her team is out of its funk.

"Having the opportunity to have a couple mid-week games, it gave us a chance to get our bats going really well," Petrini said.

"I think our offense is back on track and that bodes very well for us this weekend."