After two disappointing losses to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State last weekend, the second-ranked wrestling team looks to rebound against eleventh-ranked Iowa State at 7:30 tomorrow night in Rec Hall.

The Lions (14-2-1) are competing on their home mats for the first time since they defeated Edinboro and Lehigh on Dec 10. Iowa State has won three of the last four encounters with Penn State, including a 19-13 decision last season in Ames.

Following the junior varsity match against Bucknell tomorrow, the GTE Corporation will honor senior Jim Martin with the GTE Academic All-American of the Year Award. Martin is the defending national champion at 126 pounds and a three-time All-American who has maintained a 3.96 grade point average in pre-medicine.

With a win tomorrow night against Cyclone All-American Gary McCall, the tri-captain will break former teammate Greg Elinsky's school record for career victories. His career mark stands at 142-8-3 and he is undefeated this season (30-0-2).

Three-time All-American Tim Krieger (150) and two-time All-American Eric Voelker (190) led Iowa State to a national championship in 1987 and contributed to the Cyclones' third place finish last season. Both wrestlers were national champions in 1987 and runner-ups in last year's national tournament. They return this year along with two-time All-American Jeff Gibbons at 134 and McCall at 126.

The Lions' 142-pound wrestler, Rob Meloy, said that the team is excited to finally be wrestling at home.

"Most of the guys on our team are looking forward to wrestling Iowa State because they've had such a good team in the past," he said.

Lorenzo said the Iowa State team is strong in weight classes without the All-Americans. He said redshirt freshman Steve Hamilton, winner at the Mat-Town tournament in Lock Haven, is an outstanding competitor at 158 along with Jeff Kelly at 167, who defeated Lion wrestler Jason Suter at MatTown.

"They match up very well with us. I expect an extremely difficult time of it," Lorenzo said. "I know the match could be a lot like Oklahoma University if we're not careful. They're capable of beating us. We're going to have to go out and have 100 percent effort out of all ten of our guys."

Lorenzo said the team has been working on getting out of the bottom position and explosiveness -- problems it encountered against Oklahoma last Saturday -- in preparation for the Iowa State match and the remainder of the season.

He said the trip to Oklahoma brought the Penn State team back to reality. The 11th-year coach realizes that despite his team's progression, a lot of work must be done to prevent a recurrence of the team's poor performance against Oklahoma.

"The Oklahoma dual meet was embarrassing. We got man-handled. It was the kind of situation that we weren't sharp (and) they were pretty sharp," Lorenzo explained.

"We responded real well after our loss to Oklahoma on Saturday night. We didn't wrestle real well against Oklahoma, but the guys came back on Sunday and gave us a heck of an effort against a great team in Oklahoma State," Lorenzo continued. "We expect and know we're going to need the same kind of effort against Iowa State. "