San Marcos — There’s still a bit of snow on the ground in Central Pennsylvania and 45 degrees and rain is still what us Texans call winter weather.

And those definitely aren’t the kind of conditions favorable for baseball, unless the game is played inside, of course.

But most college baseball programs don’t have that luxury, no matter how notable the institution is. Such is the case for Penn State, which visits San Marcos for a three-game series this weekend against Texas State. The first game is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. tonight.

For the Nittany Lions, this weekend in the fourth stop on the team’s week-long tour of Texas. The Lions (4-5) scored wins over McNeese State and Dallas Baptist in the Lamar Cardinal Classic, dropped a pair to Lamar before going to College Station and suffering a 7-0 loss Wednesday.

For the Bobcats it’s a great chance to play an opponent it’s not too familiar with, a scenario the  team could face should it make a return trip to the playoffs.

“They’re a solid program from a solid conference and they’re a team that we’re not used to seeing, so it’s going to be a challenging and competitive weekend,” Texas State head coach Ty Harrington said.

The Bobcats enter the series with an overall record of 5-5 after a tough loss to third-ranked Texas Tuesday night. The Bobcats held a 3-1 lead going into the bottom of the eighth, but the Longhorns countered with three runs to rally back for the win.

While the run total isn’t at the same level as a year ago, the Bobcats are starting to swing the bat better with 26 runs scored in the past three games. Texas State is batting .252 as a team, as freshman Andrew Stumph is the team’s leading hitter with a .393 average. Kyle Livingstone is batting .279 at the plate, but slugging for .535 with a team-best 10 RBI on the season.

“We are still a work in progress at the plate, but we are starting to come around better on offense, no doubt about it,” Harrington said. “Hopefully we will see our hitting continue to improve.”

Joey DeBernardis leads Penn State with a .316 batting average, while Ben Heath has collected a team-high nine RBI with four home runs, batting .286 to date.

As a team the Nittany Lions are hitting .248, while opponents are hitting .287 against the team.

Taking the mound Friday night are right-handers Michael Russo (1-0, 2.29) and Ryan Ignas (1-0, 2.81), followed by Brian Borski (1-2, 6.75) and Neal Herring (1-0, 3.46) on Saturday. Southpaw Lee Colon (2-1, 4.26) will close out the series against right-handed pitcher Steven Hill (1-1, 2.13) on Sunday.

Overall, this will mark the third meeting between the programs, with the Bobcats taking both prior meetings. The last meeting was a 5-2 Bobcat victory in 2004.