The grind continues.

The No. 19 Penn State men's lacrosse team will play their third of six consecutive ranked opponents this week when they travel to Ithaca, N.Y., tomorrow at 2 p.m. for a game against No. 16 Cornell.

The Big Red has undergone a resurrection in recent years. The program that once dominated the Ivy League in the '70s had two-straight 3-11 seasons in 1996 and 1997. Last season, they completed a swift ascendance back to the top of the Ivy League, qualifying for the NCAA tournament and handing eventual national champion Syracuse their only loss of the season.

Cornell is 2-1 thus far, coming off a 6-5 loss to University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

The Lions are also coming off a 12-5 loss to No. 4 Georgetown, but Penn State men's lacrosse coach Glenn Thiel expects his players to get over that quickly and be up for Saturday's game.

"I think we'll be ready," Thiel said. "We've had a couple good practices this week. We added a few new wrinkles. I think they'll respond well."

The Lions will have to deal with Cornell's inverted style of offense. The Big Red sends its midfielders behind the cage while leaving the attackers out in front, attacking the short stick defenders from behind. The Big Red offense is led by senior attacker Drew Schardt, who finished second on the team last season with 25 goals and 39 points and leads the team with eight goals in Cornell's first three games. Junior attacker Scott Key has also contributed a lot with six goals and six assists thus far.

Penn State defensive coordinator Lars Tiffany plans to counter Cornell's offense by having his defense slide early. He will likely use senior defensive captain Jan Northrop to double team the ball behind the cage.

Tiffany hopes goalie Matt Vallone, who kept the Nittany Lions in the game with 22 saves against Georgetown, will not face as many shots this time.

"Matt Vallone had a lot of amazing saves against Georgetown," he said. "He covered up a lot of mistakes for us. He shouldn't have to do that. He's going to have to make some saves, but we have to make sure he doesn't have to make the amazing saves he got against Georgetown."

The Lions will also hope to duplicate their good offensive performances against Delaware and Villanova last week, spearheaded by nine goals by junior attacker Will Driscoll. The Big Red have a solid goaltender in junior Justin Cynar, who had 12 saves in the lost to Maryland Baltimore College.

"The bottom line is we have to run on them," Thiel said. "We have to be in transition, and attack the goal. They have a quick sliding defense, and we're going to try and use that to our advantage."

"This game is going to be a solid test for us. Cornell has really turned the corner, and we're going to have to come out and play hard."