Pieces of the Atlantic 10 Conference women's basketball puzzle will start falling into place after tonight's game between Penn State and West Virginia. The Lady Lions have an opportunity to make a close race even closer, and WVU can give themselves a little breathing room with a win tonight. Tipoff is set for 7:30 at Rec Hall.

The 13-4 Lady Mountaineers hold just a one-game lead over Penn State (7-10) in the A-10 race. West Virginia sports a 6-3 A-10 record and the Lady Lions hold a 5-4 mark. Both teams trail co-leaders St. Joseph's and Temple, and, along with Rutgers, the two squads are fighting for one of the top four spots in the final standings. A spot would guarantee home-court advantage through the first round of the playoffs.

"It's very important for us to start jockeying for a better position in the Atlantic 10 race," Coach Rene Portland said. "West Virginia lost to Temple (on Monday), and that certainly helps things for us. We need to keep that in mind and go after this game hard."

The Lady Lions played West Virginia hard the first time the two teams met but came up a bit short in an 81-76 overtime loss. The game was forced into overtime by Tanya Garner's late 3-pointer, but the Lady Lions let a four-point lead, and the game, slip away.

"That was so much of a problem, letting the close ones slip away, when we know we should have had them," Garner said. "Now after games we don't want to say 'we should have done this or that.' We want to say we got the job done."

But defeating WVU will be even more difficult this time around because the Lady Lions will play without guard Dawn Chambers, who suffered a knee injury at practice Monday. The injury that may sideline her for the rest of the season.

Chambers backed up point guard Dana Eikenberg, so Eikenberg must now play 30-35 minutes and shooting guard Garner will be pressed into spot service at point guard when needed.

With Stefeni Thomas leaving the team before the season and Shelly Caplinger leaving for personal reasons after the sixth game, the Lady Lions now are down to nine players. However, center Adrie DeVries should be able to play tonight after suffering a foot injury against Temple that caused her to miss the game with St. Bonaventure.

The Lady Lions would certainly like to even the score with West Virginia, but right now any win is important to the team's playoff chances.

"West Virginia is certainly a very big game for us in a lot of ways," Portland said. "It's one that we have to regroup and get ourselves going and be more successful than the last time we played them down there."

The Lady Mountaineers do the bulk of their scoring from the outside, led by Jenny Hillen and Judy Eaton. Hillen leads the team in scoring, averaging 17.2 points per game, and Eaton follows with 15.6 ppg.

But freshman Rosemary Kosiorek killed the Lady Lions in the Jan. 3 game, scoring 23 points to lead all WVU scorers. Kosiorek has been under the weather the past few weeks, but still averages 12.7 points per game.

"She really hurt us the last time we played them down there, and I don't think we did a great job on her." Portland said. "Her penetration really hurt us, as well as her outside shooting. She played one of her finest games."

The Lady Lions have been playing their finest basketball in recent games, and Portland hopes that the team's surge will not end against the Lady Mountaineers.

"Obviously this is a very big homestand for us," Portland said. "We got off on the right foot Saturday night against Bonaventure, but we are looking to stay successful on this four-game stretch before we have to go on the road. I think we're playing better basketball than we were before. I think we're much more aggressive, we're going after every loose ball, and we have to.

"We want to sweep all five at home," Garner said. "We want to be on something real positive when we go on the road, and just believe in our hearts and in our minds that nothing is going to stop us."

"This is a must game," Portland said. "I think we have to take everything at home, and we have to go into every road game wanting it. We're certainly going in as the underdog with high hopes."