Trying for its fourth win against Villanova in four years, the men's swimming and diving team faces the Wildcats (6-2) at 4 this afternoon at Dupont Pool.

Today's meet, the Lions' fourth competition in 12 days, will end a month of meets that left them at 3-3 in dual-meet action.

Despite January's demanding schedule, Coach Peter Brown said he is looking forward to the meet, but is happy his team will have 10 days before its next competition.

"I'm using the meet to swim some guys in different events that are still good events for them," Brown said. "We're still going to have to swim a strong lineup to get the job done."

And even though the Lions will get their break from competition, they will not rest until after the Villanova meet.

"It's not a meet we can take lightly," Brown said. "Villanova has some good times and some very talented swimmers. But if we swam our best lineup against their best lineup, we should come out ahead."

Villanova coach Ed Geisz said while the normal meet with Penn State is a good matchup, the Wildcats are hurting this year. His best diver is sidelined with a broken foot, one swimmer is out because of a hernia operation and two swimmers were put on academic suspension.

"We're in bad shape," he said. "But I'm not making any excuses; we're going to do our very best."

Although the Lions dropped tough matches to Pitt and Virginia, Brown said he is not discouraged.

"I feel very good about what we can do," he said. "Looking at our times on paper we have the making of a very good team. We just have to keep plugging away."

Freshman Quinn Carver is looking forward to his first encounter with the Wildcats.

"I'm psyched up," Carver said. "My times have been getting a lot better the last two meets so I'm really excited to go out and see what I can do."

Geisz will face the Lions for the last time. He will retire after this season, ending 37 years of coaching.

One of Penn State's objectives in the Villanova meet is to qualify more swimmers for the Eastern Seaboard Championships on Mar. 1-3 at Army. Although some swimmers will qualify for more than three events, he will swim the ones he is most likely to score in. So far, 15 swimmers have qualified in at least one event.

"Between this week and the next three meets we should be able to take care of what we need to do in that respect," Brown said. "A lot of the swimmers have already began tapering so it's just a matter of continuing to rest and sharp up certain things so we'll have the speed that we'll need when we try to do the deed."