April 18, 2008
University Park, Pa. - The Penn State baseball team will continue a seven-game homestand this weekend as the Nittany Lions will play at home for the second straight year on Blue-White Weekend, this year hosting the Indiana Hoosiers for a four-game series beginning on Friday at 6:35 p.m. Saturday's doubleheader will start at 4:35 p.m. while Sunday's single game will begin at 1:05 p.m. There will be fireworks following the game on Friday and the doubleheader on Saturday.
Penn State will be looking for its first Big Ten series win of the year against the Hoosiers, who have only defeated the Nittany Lions in a series one time in history, that being in 1993. The teams have split their series in their past three meetings, last year, in 2006 and in 2003. The teams did not meet in 2004 and 2005. Prior to 2003, the Nittany Lions won four straight series against the Hoosiers from 1999-2002.
The Nittany Lions will likely start the same foursome in the rotation that have started in the first three conference weekends. Last weekend, Ryan Stobart and Seth Whitehill switched places, with Stobart starting on Friday and Whitehill on Sunday. That proved to be successful as Stobart turned in his fourth straight quality start and Whitehill turned in his first quality start in Big Ten play to help the Nittany Lions salvage the final game against Purdue last Sunday. Mike Wanamaker and Mike Lorentson will likely start the Saturday doubleheader.
At the plate, a couple of Nittany Lions enter the series swinging the bats the best they have all season. Wes Borden has collected three hits in each of his last two games while Lou Picconi has multiple hits in each of his last two games as well, his first two multi-hit games of the year. Joe Blackburn is also hitting .400 over his last eight games and has reached base safely in 19 of his last 21 games. Landon Nakata has been an on-base machine as of late, reaching base safely in 23 of his last 37 plate appearances and in 13 of his last 14 games.