When Dave Denniston took over the baseball program at Penn State's Beaver Campus, one of the first things he did was upgrade the schedule.

Not that it was bad before, but Denniston, who was an assistant to Hopewell High School coach Joe Colella for 10 years before joining the PS Beaver staff last year, learned that to beat good teams, a squad has to play good teams.

With that in mind, Penn State Beaver played Robert Morris University twice in the fall. While in Fort Pierce, Fla., in March the Lions played Nyack College, Chestnut Hill College, Northwestern College and Neuman College. When they returned to Western Pennsylvania, they played Waynesburg and Geneva, Gannon and Clarion universities.

Playing the tougher schedule didn't help the won-loss record -- Clarion beat the Lions, 7-5 and 11-2 -- but it made PS Beaver better.

The result is a 19-9 record this spring, a 16-4 mark in the Penn State University Athletic Conference and a chance to repeat as the PSUAC champion.

Penn State Beaver was scheduled to play PS Brandywine in the PSUAC double-elimination tournament yesterday in Williamsport, Pa.

"We're 35-16 overall [counting the games in the fall] and upgrading the schedule helped," Denniston said. "And we've been invited to play in the USCAA tournament."

Which makes sense since Penn State Beaver is No. 1 in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association's most recent baseball rankings.

The USCAA is an association of smaller colleges that don't give athletic scholarships. It is just a notch below the NCAA Division III level. The USCAA tournament is May 10-15 in Hampton, Va.

"When we were in Florida, we used 13 players, while most of the teams we went against had 28 players," Denniston said. "That's the difference between schools at our level and Division III and II teams."

Greg Frederick, a sophomore from Quaker Valley High School, has been a standout for the Lions. He has a .464 batting average (39 for 84) with 23 RBIs and a .679 slugging percentage. Besides playing shortstop, he pitches and has five wins with 51 strikeouts in 44²/₃ innings.

Joe Scherer, another Quaker Valley graduate, catches and pitches. He has two wins.

Jeff Trojan from Rochester has the other hot bat. He is hitting .397 with two homers, 30 RBIs and a .630 slugging percentage.

The rest of the infield has Ambridge High grads Justin Parasida at first and Nate Stonfer at shortstop when Frederick is pitching. The third baseman is Ryan Raraigh from Riverside High School.

The outfield has Pat Ringel, a Seneca Valley graduate, in center with Alex Fox of Ellwood City in left and Houston Lorenzo of Miami, Fla., in right. That's correct, Penn State Beaver has a player from the Sunshine State.

"I guess his mother just liked Penn State and they looked at a couple of the branch campuses before deciding to come here," Denniston said.

Huston has scored 24 runs and has a .554 slugging percentage. Ringel also pitches -- he has three wins and 29 strikeouts in 42¹/₃ innings -- as does Seneca Valley graduate Jake Ellis.

Raraigh is hitting .441 with 23 RBIs and Ringel has 16 stolen bases and 12 runs. Lorenzo has scored 24 runs and has a .554 slugging percentage.

"We had 24 players on the roster in the fall but a few of those were social players," Denniston said.

The outstanding season hasn't come as a surprise to Denniston. He thought he had a solid team when practices began.

"I was hoping we'd get a chance to defend our [Penn State] conference title," he said. "I've got a good group of guys."