Coming off last week's 11-3 pasting of Richmond, the women's lacrosse team will try to improve its record to 2-0 when it plays at 2 tomorrow against James Madison.

Last year the Lady Lions crushed the Duchesses, 18-8, and are confident going into the game especially after last week's performances against Richmond and at the William and Mary Invitational.

"JMU is always tougher than Richmond, they are competitors," Coach Julie Williams said. "They have a lot of speed."

At the Invitational, in a series of preseason games that will not count to the team's record, the women finished 3-2 with victories against Towson State, Penn and Yale.

"This weekend everyone has a great sense of confidence especially after we went down to William and Mary and played to our potential," defender Elena Brazer said.

"After last weekend it was good for us to finally go out and play," defender Lynn Burnes said. "As far as this weekend, we are looking forward to playing."

But the Lady Lions are confident they will not overlook James Madison.

"We never take them to lightly, especially coming off the NCAA championship," Burnes said. "Everyone still wants to beat Penn State."

The team will again look to co-captain Diane Whipple and Kay Young to spark it against James Madison. Last week, Whipple scored five goals and Young finished with seven saves against the Lady Spiders.

"(Whipple) is so dominant now," Williams said. "She is definitely our strongest attacker."

Williams added she would like to see a more even attack this weekend, however.

After last week Williams said she was most pleased with the defense.

"The defense all over the field, I have to praise it," she said.

But since it is so early in the season the team does have something to work on.

"We worked a lot on transition from defense to the midfield," Burnes said. "We are such a young team we have got to get the trust of who to throw and catch to."

Williams added that the team also needs to overcome a slow start that plagued it last week. At the start of the second half against Richmond, the score was only 4-2 in favor of Penn State.