"We learned a disappointing lesson," Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose said. "To succeed in this sport you have to train hard and work hard every day, and perform well on a consistent basis. We haven't been doing that very well."

Rose was not pleased with his team's efforts in practice since defeating Wisconsin Saturday, and has never had the feeling that this season's team had the intangibles of some of the championship squads he's coached.

He has tried changing the lineup, which worked for the Wisconsin and Northwestern matches, but not the third time around against Ohio State.

"We had the same personnel out there that beat the best team in the conference," Rose said. "We can hope that other players step up, but we have to make due with what we have."

The Lions know they can't go into any conference road game flat, but they will be facing another struggling squad in Purdue. The Boilermakers are currently last in the conference at 1-11 in the Big Ten, and 3-17 overall.

They have lost their last 11 conference matches after defeating Iowa in their first conference match of the season, and eight of their last 10 overall. The young squad that features just three seniors and one junior is hurting in almost every aspect of the game.

They have allowed the highest hitting percentage among conference opponents. They have the third worst hitting percentage. They rank last in assists, next to last in kills, and next to last in blocks.

However, the forces opposing the Lions tonight will include more than just the Boilermakers. They will have to fight to keep the disappointment of Wednesday's loss from carrying over into Friday.

"The general team feeling was that the Wisconsin game was going to be the game that turned this team around," junior outside hitter Hilary Sexton said. "It was really depressing that we came out a little too confident and couldn't compete in that game."

While the team's internal problems will in no way be fixed in time for tonight's game, they can only prepare for the Boilermakers in one way.

"I don't think we can do anything else but go up," senior setter Shannon Bortner said after the game. "We can't do much worse than what we did. We're not going to practice tomorrow and we only have an hour and a half practice Friday to get ready to play Purdue. Hopefully we have a real focused practice and come out ready to play."