The biggest challenge this season for the men's swimming and diving team lies straight ahead.

Six hours south, to be exact, in Charlottesville, Va., where at 4 tomorrow afternoon the undefeated Lions (5-0) will swim against nationally-ranked Virginia.

Penn State, which kept its record perfect last Saturday with a 145-96 pounding of Pitt, is looking to do the same thing against the Cavaliers and to maintain the consistency which has carried the Lions to their best start in years.

Virginia, currently ranked No. 21 in the nation, suffered its first loss of the season last weekend at the hands of North Carolina, dropping its record to 3-1 on the season.

Last year at Virginia the Lions lost a tough meet to the perenially strong Cavaliers, 136-107, and are hoping that this year a stronger, more balanced Penn State team will avenge that loss.

Coach Peter Brown believes that tomorrow's meet is the biggest challenge the team has had this season and said that the team needs to move their performance level up to the next notch and swim as tough as they do at Eastern Championships.

"We're confident going into the meet, and I expect us to do well against (Virginia) because we've risen to the occasion every other time we've been challenged this year," Brown said.

Junior co-captain Phil Meyer, who will be swimming in the 500- and 1000-meter freestyle and 400 freestyle relay, believes that the depth which the Lions have used throughout the season to beat up on the opposition can be utilized again this week against the Cavaliers.

"In order for us to win, we need to get a lot of second- and third-place finishes across the board," Meyer said.

Brown agrees that the Lions will need to finish strong in each of the events and believes that the key for the meet is for Penn State to finish the races strong and to nail turns quickly.

"We're going to have to do well in stroke events and put together one of our best meets of the year," Brown said. "Walt (Sopp) should really be able to stick it to them in the 50 and 100 free."

The Penn State divers will need to do much the same in order to beat a Virginia team which gets its dives cleanly into the water for high scores.

Jeff Eagles, diving in only his second meet of the season, will lead the team of Steve Zamborsky, Chris Devine and Joe Marsh on both the 1-and 3-meter boards.

Diving coach Craig Brown said he believes that the Lions are a more disciplined and better executing team, but he is wary of a Virginia team which makes very few mistakes. However, he is looking for big things against the Cavaliers and wants to prove something to the perennial ACC champs.

"We really need to go in against an ACC team and beat them up," he said. "I'd really like to see us go one, two, three and show them that we're for real."