Penn State baseball shows growth in Cooper's third season

UNIVERSITY PARK -- In head coach Rob Cooper's third season with Penn State, his team has recorded their overall best record heading into the series finale. The Lions also have their first chance under Cooper's leadership to earn a berth to the Big Ten Tournament with two wins over Iowa.

Since coming to Happy Valley in 2013, Cooper has been focused on building a team that will play in the College World Series. Every year the team has gotten closer to that goal and he credits his players' overall focus for this growth.

"We're over .500 at this point in the season which hasn't happened in a long time here," Cooper said.

"We're a program that's made of baseball players that care about it and want to make it better."

As the players have bought into Cooper's philosophy, it's been the seniors helping to initiate the right mindset.

"Building it throughout the entire year to get to a point where we know what kind of team we are now," senior infielder Tyler Kendall said.

"That overall mindset of wanting the ball or wanting that at bat has been what we are good at."

Now this team is putting all their focus on winning at least two of the three games versus the Hawkeyes to secure a Big Ten berth. Something both the players and coaches would be satisfied to see happen.

"I'd really like it because I want those six seniors to get rewarded and to keep playing. I'm not ready to be done coaching them right now," Cooper said.

The Nittany Lions lost the first game, 3-2, to Iowa on Thursday and will play a double-header on Friday.

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