After the difficulty the women's swimming and diving team had just getting to its meet in Wisconsin, competing against the Badgers seemed simple.

The Lady Lions' travel plans were changed by Friday's inclement weather. The team took a bus to Harrisburg, waited in the Harrisburg Airport for nine-and-a-half hours, flew to Chicago and spent another three hours on a bus, finally arriving in Madison at midnight. Eleven hours later, the team took out its frustration on Wisconsin, hammering the Badgers, 173-127.

"It was an ugly win," Coach Bob Krimmel said. "We've had some pretty losses earlier in the season where we swam well but lost. I'd much rather have an ugly win than a pretty loss."

It's doubtful any sports team went through so much to get a win, much less an ugly one.

"It was hard to get up early Saturday and swim," junior co-captain Deni Rudy said. "Since we had gone through so much to get there, we didn't want to not swim well. Everyone swam really well and we did what we had to do."

For the third week in a row, Penn State jumped out to a lead that it maintained throughout the meet. Led by Lisa Pastrana, Julie Krail, Jen Baird and Regan Stacey, the Lady Lions won five of the first six events and never looked back.

"The first half of the meet, we dominated," sprinter Trina Sullivan said. "They dominated the second half and Krim talked to us in the middle about preparation. Then we were ready to go out and do what we had to do in order to come out with the win."

The Lady Lions were ready for anything after their travel nightmare, but to defeat a good conference opponent by such a margin --46 points -- was surprising even to the team.

"We were expecting a fight," Sullivan said. "I think we were able to win by so much because of our depth."

Krimmel was also surprised by the results of the meet, after a road trip where "nothing went right.

"I'm pleased with their performances," Krimmel said. "They swam better than I could have ever expected. It's nice to be able to come through a meet where our depth worked for us."