The No. 6 Pepperdine Waves, with their Malibu tans and redwood-sized players, roll into Rec Hall at 7:30 tonight to take on the No. 8 Lions (6-2) in the first of two weekend matches.

The teams will meet again at 7:30 tomorrow night at Conestoga Valley High School.

"We're going to have to be playing our best, for sure," Coach Tom Peterson said. "I think they're going to be pretty consistent. They're not going to let the crowd and everything else affect their game."

"I think if our passing is consistent and we play as a team, we'll be fine," sophomore middle blocker Winfield Evens said. "I think we can beat them. We just have to play together as a team; we've been having problems with that lately, I think."

Pepperdine (2-1) is coming off an uncharacteristic off-season in which it was 16-14. But the Waves are anything but washed-up; they have added five of Volleyball Monthly's "Fab 50" 1989 high school seniors to an already young and talented lineup.

Add tall to that list of adjectives describing the Waves -- their starting lineup averages almost 6'5". The Lions have only four players on their varsity squad who are listed at 6'5".

Pepperdine has four returning starters -- juniors Geoff Hart, Dijon Douphner, Brian Merrick and George Thompson. Two freshmen, outside hitter Duane Cameron and middle blocker Tom Sorenson, are the other starters.

"I wouldn't call us a young team (and) I wouldn't call us an old team --I'd call us middle-aged," Pepperdine assistant coach Andy Read said.

The Lions are coming off a four-game loss to Southern Cal in the finals of the Fort Wayne National Bank / Pepsi Invitational last weekend, their second straight loss in a tournament championship.

"We were all kind of disappointed," Coach Tom Peterson said. "That's kind of the team atmosphere -- that we can play better than what we did against USC."

Although Peterson personally is not concerned about the Lions' early season losses, he is worried about the effect they appear to be having on some of the players.

"A few of the guys might let losing to USC and losing to Ball State affect their performance in practice," Peterson said. "I think it's just really too bad . . . (that) some people have a tendency to not get motivated. It's kind of a feeling that we're waiting to see how good we were going to be.

"All losses can be quality losses. It depends on how you use them. There are many national champions in many sports that lose all sorts of games here and there; it's what you do about that is what counts."

Evens, however, has seen some improvement during Penn State's practices this week.

"(Wednesday) was a really encouraging practice," Evens said. "The drills are similar, but the intensity level is a lot higher. Coach (Peterson) has been trying to push us, but you've got to push yourself."

A number of Lions are still competing fiercely for starting spots. Setters Jim Schall and Scott Miller have both played well thus far.

Another tight battle is at middle blocker, where Evens, Tito Nunez and Todd Shirley are vying for two spots.