Women's Tennis

The Lady Lions have a busy start to their spring season. They meet Temple at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at the Penn State Tennis Club and meet Illinois at the same time and place on Sunday.

Temple is coming off a 4-0 fall record. Illinois is nationally ranked in the top 40 but holds an 0-2 record. This match up with the Lady Lions, who had a fall record of 1-2, will be the first Big Ten clash for both teams.

Key stats: The Fighting Illini lost their first two matches to No. 32 Oklahoma and No. 31 South Alabama, with scores of 6-3 and 8-1, respectively. Their only victory against South Alabama was posted by sophomore Anita Pearson.

Injuries: There are no major injuries to report.

Preview: The Lady Lions will have no seniors this season. The top doubles team consists of Olga Novikova and Tricia Lehman. The second team is freshman Kellie Murphy and Robyn Reagan, and the third team is junior Kim and Melissa Feeney. All of these players compete in singles, except for Feeney.

Coach Sue Whiteside says: "We will beat Temple for sure. We will have our hands full with Illinois, but everyone is looking pretty good. The match with Temple will get us off to a good start, and hopefully set the tone for the rest of the season."

Fighting Illini Coach Jennifer Roberts says: "We struggled overall as a team last weekend. But we learned some things which will help us prepare for Penn State," she said in a news release. "Penn State is stronger than they were last year, so we will be competing in a challenging match."

The Nittany Lions will compete in a five-team meet with host Cornell and Canadian teams Waterloo, Toronto and York. The meet starts at 11 a.m. tomorrow in Ithaca, N.Y.

Key Stats: Last Saturday, the Lions competed in the Patriot Games in Fairfax, Va. Senior Harry Stants won the 5,000-meters with a time of 14:58.54. Junior Mike Hartman finished seventh in the pole vault with a season-best vault of 14-9.

Injuries: Senior Bob Hamer, who finished second in the mile (4:09.37) at the Patriot Games, broke his collarbone last week while running the 800-meters and is out indefinitely.

Preview: This is the first time since Jan. 21 that Penn State will send its whole team to compete in a scoring meet. The Lions finished third in that home meet with Michigan and Michigan State.

Because all five teams will compete in every eventeach event will be equally important, Lion Coach Harry Groves said. The first five finishers in each event will score. And because five teams will compete, there will be good athletes in each event, Groves said.

"With five teams, if one team is weak in an event, someone else will be strong," he added. "In a scoring meet like this, it means every event is equally important."

Cornell Coach Lou Duesing, a Penn State alumnus, echoed Groves' statement.

"I'm looking for a good competition," Duesing said. "With the schools involved, we're almost guaranteed of that. Every event should have some good competition."

Coach Groves says: "Everything in this event is equally important because it is a scoring meet."

Coach Duesing says: "I've worked with Harry Groves and there is not a finer coach in the country. He runs a good, clean program."

Women's Indoor Track

Penn State (1-0) will compete in a quad meet with Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame at 10 a.m. tomorrow in East Lansing, Mich.

Key Stats: Penn State has not competed in a scored meet since a dual meet with Georgetown on Jan. 21. The Lady Lions ran in the Terrier Classic at Boston and an unscored meet with Syracuse on Feb. 4, in which several athletes qualified for Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships.

Injuries: There are no major injuries to report.

Preview: Lady Lion Coach Teri Jordan said she is looking for national qualifying performances from distance runners Kris Kelly and Kelli Hunt as well as shot putter Kim Hicks. She also expects high jumper Holly Jones to secure a place at NCAAs, improving on the provisional qualification that she achieved against Georgetown.

Jones should be pushed by Michigan's Monika Black and Linda Stuck, who tied for second in the high jump at outdoor Big Ten Championships last season. Jordan said other competition for the Lady Lions should come from a much-improved Michigan State team and a strong distance squad from Notre Dame.

Coach Jordan says: "Our distance medley relay is going to start off the meet, and it would be nice if they could hit a national qualifying time."

Softball

Penn State (0-0) faces Robert Morris (0-0) at noon Sunday in Holuba Hall for two scrimmages.

Key stats: Colonial pitcher Carol Ewan is her team's top starter and compiled a 14-8 record with a 2.05 ERA last season. Junior Colonial hurler Jen Schmittle was a second-team All-American in junior college and second baseman Sandy Dobran is the squad's top returning hitter. Last season, the sophomore hit .306.

Penn State's top returning batter -- sophomore outfielder Jennifer Accordino -- hit .276 with seven RBI. The leading pitcher for Penn State is Heidi Hanna. The redshirt junior pitched only 32 innings last season but held opposing hitters to 2.19 earned runs and struck out 31.

Injuries: Lady Lion pitchers Hanna, Jennifer Hippo and Gypsy Gooding have all spent the past few days battling the flu and are questionable for Sunday.

Preview: Because of last weekend's snow, the Lady Lions' scrimmages with Virginia were canceled and will not be rescheduled. The Lady Lions faced Robert Morris last February, losing 12-2.

This will be the first "game situation" against an opponent for Penn State co-captains Cathy Boyd and Rebecca Wisnoff to provide leadership for their teammates. The Lady Lions will look to even the all-time series with the Colonials, which now stands at 2-3.

Penn State Coach Sue Rankin says: "Obviously, another week of practice helps, but our kids are just ready to play (an opponent). They beat us last year and they had a lot of offense. It should be pretty exciting."

Robert Morris Coach Craig Coleman says: "Last year we waited for the home run. This season we'll have to adapt to our offensive strategy to our personnel," he said in a released statement. "We have less power in terms of long-ball potential . . . we'll employ the short game to manufacture runs."