As the Penn State baseball team prepared to leave Iowa City yesterday afternoon, Robbie Wine put it simply.

"We scored more runs and got more hits [on Friday]," the Nittany Lions' head coach said. "On Saturday and Sunday, something happened and we just didn't get it done."

That something was a couple things, like errors and runners stranded on base, which contributed to Penn State losing two of three games against Iowa this weekend.

After the Lions started the three-game series with a 6-1 win on Friday night, the Hawkeyes responded with back-to-back wins -- 1-0 on Saturday afternoon and 6-2 yesterday -- to snap Penn State's win streak at three and spoil its first road series against a conference opponent this season.

Penn State (8-17, 2-4 Big Ten) and Iowa (13-9, 3-4) were originally scheduled to play four games, but inclement weather shortened the series to three. It was the second time in as many weeks that the Lions had a four-game series abbreviated.

While poor weather, namely strong winds and frigid temperatures, was a constant throughout the weekend, Penn State's performance was anything but.

The Lions extended their season-best winning streak to three after Friday's win, which produced six runs off of 10 hits. It was also their third straight game with at least six runs.

Penn State failed to continue its offense resurgence, however, and mustered only 11 hits and two runs in the losses Saturday and yesterday. It also stranded 19 runners on base -- more than double Iowa's eight -- and committed three errors in those games.

Wine said the Lions didn't take advantage of their opportunities, leaving 26 runners on base and committed five errors while Iowa stranded 19 runners and was perfect in the field with no errors for the entire series.

"On Friday, we were getting timely hits and we were extending innings. On Saturday and Sunday, we just couldn't seem to get timely hits," junior catcher Joe Blackburn said.

Heading into yesterday's game, the Lions looked to redeem themselves after being shut out for the fifth time this season on Saturday. With junior pitcher Scott Gaffney, who was 2-2 for the year, on the mound, they had a good chance of doing that.

Gaffney allowed just three earned runs in three innings of work, but Iowa's four-run outburst in the third inning, which was aided by one of two Penn State errors, put the game out of reach and gave the series to the Hawkeyes.

To junior pitcher Seth Whitehill, one timely hit in either loss would have changed the weekend's outcome.

"In both those games, we were one hit away from a win," he said. "Eventually, the balls are going to start dropping for us, so we'll be all right."

Notes

Senior infielder Matt Cavagnaro reached based for the 14th straight game after he led-off the game with a single ...Whitehill pitched 5 2/3 innings and allowed no earned runs on Friday to pick up his second win of the season ... Senior pitcher Craig Clark surrendered just four hits and one earned run in a complete game performance in Saturday's loss, which was only seven innings ... Penn State will serve as host to Temple at 6:35 p.m. on Wednesday.