Last season the Penn State women's volleyball team entered the season ranked No.1 and lost the opening game to Florida, but responded by rattling off the next 36 wins and claiming its first national title.

Eight months later, the Lady Lions are a little bit lighter with the departure of three All-Americans but are unwilling to relinquish the NCAA crown as they go after their second title in as many years.

Penn State heads into the season with a top-ranked schedule and has many questions to answer as it defends its NCAA hardware.

"It's a new season and a new team," Penn State junior outside hitter Katie Schumacher said. "It's something that we know we did and it's exciting, but it's time to move on."

Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose enters his 22nd season with the Lions and appears to be uncertain about what is ahead for this year's squad.

"We are a different team this year than we have been in year's past," Rose said. "I don't think we're as talented as we have been and we will make more mistakes than we did before."

While some coaches might try to hold on to last year's NCAA crown and take a lighter schedule to open the season, Rose has decided to challenge his squad by opening up against a pair of heavyweights, No.1 UCLA and No. 18 Texas, starting Friday at the NACWAA Classic in Gainesville, Fla. 5 p.m.

And his players are behind him.

"It's one of the reasons I think we all came here," Penn State junior outside hitter Amanda Rome said. "We always play good teams, which enables us to make us better. If we did not play good teams we would never know how good we are."

One of the biggest questions on the squad is replacing All-American setter Bonnie Bremner. Bremner, who guided the Lions to four straight NCAA Final Four appearances and three national title games, graduated and has past the torch to sophomore Shannon Bortner.

Bortner, who has seen limited action throughout her collegiate career will have the opportunity to ease her way into that role. Throughout the summer she worked on her game in tournaments throughout the country. Her hard work and drive to get better in the off-season has already earned the confidence of her teammates.

"We will help her out, out there," Rome said. "She has done the same thing for us these past couple of seasons and I think she'll be fine."

The Lions return three- preseason All-Big Ten players in Nadia Edwards, Rome and Schumacher. Unlike years before, Penn State does not have a clear-cut go-to player like it has before. That will give any number of players the opportunity to shoulder the load.

The Lions appear to be optimistic and seem to be confident about the season, however they will be tested early and that could determine how far they go.