When the George Mason women's soccer team takes on Navy tonight, head coach Jac Cicala will try to secure his 100th career coaching victory.

If he and his Patriots should fall, reaching that milestone will be a much more daunting task on Sunday, when George Mason visits Happy Valley to take on No. 4 Penn State, 1 p.m. at Jeffrey Field.

Penn State women's soccer coach Pat Farmer, returning first-team All-Americans Christie Welsh and Emily Oleksiuk and the rest of the Lady Lions will be awaiting Cicala's troops as they look to open their season with a bang.

In the last meeting between the two teams, the Lady Lions defeated the Patriots 3-2 in Fairfax, and they are expecting another tough contest Sunday.

George Mason is coming off a 9-11 season, returning ten starters from a squad that saw more injuries than the set of a Jackie Chan movie. At one point last season, there were only 13 active players on the Patriots' roster, and the team is eager to prove that, when healthy, it is capable of big things.

"We have such a large group coming back. We were young and naïve as a team last year, but in spite of that and the injuries, we were able to play very competitively with some big-name teams."

Cicala is also excited about the return to the lineup of defender Stephanie Hancock, who missed six games last season due to concussions, and the addition to the lineup of sophomore goalkeeper Sarah Coughlin, whom the Patriots redshirted last year.

Penn State is most concerned with stopping junior forward Katy Robertson, who last year set a Colonial Athletic Association record for points in a season with 60. Robertson needs 63 points to break the school career record, and she enters tonight's contest against Navy with a six-game goal-scoring streak.

Besides each earning a spot on the 2000 Soccer Buzz Preseason All-American team, Farmer said Robertson and Welsh share other similarities.

"She's big, strong, and similar to Christie in her style of play."

Farmer said the team doesn't plan to give her too much extra attention, though.

"Our players usually take it as a point of pride to play everyone straight up," Farmer said. "They know who she is, and look at it as a challenge."

Cicala said the Patriots will have a similar approach toward Welsh, whose 67 points last year set a Big Ten and team single-season record.

"The worst mistake we could make would be to treat her as the only weapon. We recognize her talents, but we're not going overboard."

Although he added jokingly, "I was hoping she'd be in Sydney by now."