With a 3-3 game in the top of the seventh inning, Kent State's David Lyon belted a one-out double down the left field line.
The few bundled-up fans in attendance, hiding underneath blankets during the chilly night at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, screamed "Foul! Foul!" But Lyons pulled into second base, and a batter later rounded to home plate to score the game-winning run for the Golden Flashes.
Penn State blew a three-run lead, and Kent State (19-6) downed the Nittany Lions (15-11, 1-2) Wednesday night, 4-3.
After scoring three combined runs in the first three innings, the Lion bats failed to put another run on the board.
"They're just frustrated right now," head coach Robbie Wine said of his batters. "They better be able to get over it -- that's baseball."
In Tuesday night's victory over Bucknell, the Penn State batters faced seven different pitchers and after the game noted the difficulty on finding a rhythm.
Wednesday was more of the same, as the Lions faced six of the Golden Flashes' pitchers.
"That's always tough," right fielder Mike Deese said. "You never really get into a groove and you can't get that timing down."
Penn State's bullpen, however, put to bed its recent frustrations during the losing effort.
The Lions cycled through their bullpen -- six Penn State hurlers took the mound Wednesday night -- and allowed just four earned runs on eight hits.
"We wanted to get all of these guys to the mound," Wine said. "These midweek games, when all those arms are being thrown at you every inning, every pitch, it's just a different feel."
Mike Franklin came to the mound in the fifth as the Lions' third pitcher. He sat down the first two Golden Flashes batters that he faced on ground-outs and ended the night with three outs against four batters faced.
Franklin's strong outing came just one day after he was credited with four earned runs against in just 0.1 innings of work.
Wine said it was important to throw the freshman reliever back into a game situation Wednesday to give him another learning experience and a chance to shake-off the previous day.
"As a pitcher, it's important to have a short-term memory. Just getting out there and shrugging last night off is big," Franklin said. "You throw your stuff and let the fielders make the plays behind you."
While Wine said he was pleased with most of the play from his bullpen Wednesday, he admitted Mike Lorentson still isn't where he needs to be.
The usual starter allowed a single on his first pitch of the fourth inning in relief duty.
A Kent State runner moved to second base on a passed ball by catcher Ben Heath and Lorentson gave up the first run of the game when Brad Winter rocketed a low liner right back over the mound. Lorentson allowed three runs, three hits and one walk in the fourth inning.
Wine said he plans to keep working with Lorentson to get him back on track with the rest of the bullpen and noted the real problem with the senior south-paw, and formerly for the rest of the staff, is when the game blows up the second time through the lineup.
"You just can't do that," Wine said. "That's why it was a 4-3 game today."
