For any team, the first match of the season helps to paint the picture for the upcoming year.

For the men's volleyball team, its inaugural match against No. 7 Stanford at 7:30 p.m. today in Rec Hall will do much more than that. It could be the Lions' most competitive match of the season.

"These three matches against Stanford will set the tone for the season," senior co-captain Ramon Hernandez said. "They will tell us how prepared we are for this year to face the tougher teams."

The Lions will take on Stanford in three matches this weekend. The final two matches will be played tomorrow at Council Rock High School in Newtown, and Saturday at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown. This is so the two sponsors who helped finance Stanford's trip can attempt to make some of their money back.

The last time these two teams faced off was during the 1992 regular season, when the Lions lost twice. The two teams also competed in November during this year's preseason, but this weekend's matches will be totally different.

"It is going to be a real test for us playing a good Stanford team this early in the season," Hernandez said. "When we beat them 3-0 in the preseason, they did not have Canyon Ceman, who is one of the best players right now in the country."

Ceman, Stanford's senior setter, was voted last year's college player of the year by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. Ceman was not at the preseason tournament because he was recuperating from shoulder surgery, but he will be playing this weekend.

"Canyon Ceman has more experience and he has played in more matches than I have," Lions' setter Carlos Ortiz said. "It is going to be a learning experience playing against him. Hopefully I can pick up some things while we play together."

Both teams concentrate on different aspects of their game, running totally different offenses. Stanford focuses on its height advantage, while the Lions "movement offense" gives them many possible choices for each hit.

"Passing is the key to our offense," said sophomore middle hitter Kevin Hourican. "When we pass well, our offense is really hard to stop because we mix it up a lot. We have a lot of quick attacks, back row hits and we can switch up the inside and outside hitters."

The team knows that Stanford's main advantage is its height. The Lions have been working all week, practicing all of their defenses that will help them prepare for this.

"In the past, our problems have been stopping the back row," said Lions' middle blocker Ivan Contreras. "Both of Stanford's middle blockers are very tall and quick, so it will be real tough for our guys to stop them."

Because only one of the matches will be played in Rec Hall, the Lions will only have one opportunity to use the home court to its advantage.

"We need a lot of people to show up to get a good home court advantage," Coach Tom Peterson said. "It is hard to affect them because they are so used to playing in Long Beach State and USC, where the fans can become extremely rowdy. I think we really have to get noisy to try to rattle them."