Baseball

Although Penn State's offense has struggled at times during the young season, the Nittany Lions put up eight runs against Houston on Tuesday. It was not enough.

In the highest scoring contest of the year thus far, the Lions (3-7) were plagued by Houston's (9-3) big innings and ultimately fell to the Cougars, 14-8.

Penn State came out strong and plated the first two runs during its first at bat with a RBI double by catcher J.C. Coban and a RBI single by first baseman J.J. White.

The lead was short lived, however, as the Cougars put up a six spot in the bottom half of the first, which chased out the Lions' starting pitcher Patton Taylor.

Nick Hedge replaced Taylor after the sophomore struggled in the first. Hedge tossed four and a third innings in relief work and gave up two hits and two runs, but both were unearned.

Both of those runs came in the second inning and pushed the Cougars' lead to 8-2.

The scoring settled down until the Lions mounted a comeback in the fifth inning. Back-to-back three-run innings for the Lions tied the contest at eight with three frames left to play.

Houston took advantage of the remaining at bats. The Lions could not keep up with the Cougars' offense as Houston plated four runs in the seventh inning and followed up the scoring onslaught with two more runs in the eighth.

The Lions had hits from seven of their nine batters and received RBIs from six. Designated hitter Matt Paradise was the only Lion to have multiple RBIs as he was responsible for two of Penn State runs.

The Lions and the Cougars will square off again Wednesday at 5 p.m.