Coming off a disastrous loss to highly ranked Florida in the season opener, the Penn State women's swimming and diving team had only one way to go: up.

With two weeks to prepare for the University of Virginia, the No. 14 Nittany Lions (0-2) showed marked improvement but were unable to get over the hump against a good Virginia outfit, losing to the No. 10 Cavaliers (3-0) 127-114.

The meet could be best summed up by the first race of the day, the 400-yard medley relay. The Lions' relay team of freshman Sarah Haupt, sophomores Courtney Stanchock and Jennifer Eberst and senior Katie Hostetler swam stroke for stroke with the victorious UVA team, losing by a mere 1.11 seconds. All day the Lions were good, but just not good enough.

"We swam with more heart today than we did last time out [Florida] and we're going to be a good team," said Penn State women's swimming coach Bill Dorenkott. "It's just going to take a little longer than we would like."

The Lions won their first event of the season in the 200-yard freestyle courtesy of junior Sally Anderson, who won with a time of 1:50.70, outlasting Virginia's Carlie Dykehouse by just 0.15 seconds. Anderson also took third place in the 500-yard freestyle and anchored the 400-yard freestyle to a second-place finish. Also winning for the Lions were Stanchock in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:19.64, and the 400-yard freestyle relay of freshman Amberle Biedermann, sophomores Dee Dlugonski and Lauren Semchyshen and senior Kristin Weinhold with a time of 3:28.90.

The star of the day for the Lions was freshman diver Lisa Silvestri, who won both the one- and three-meter diving events. Silvestri won the one-meter with a score of 289.20, helping the Lions to sweep the event. She also took the three-meter with a score of 310.72. The freshman improved her score in both events by nearly 20 points from the Florida meet.

"She [Silvestri] executed really well, and I thought our other kids were really steady, much more relaxed than against Florida, and really made the improvements from the Florida meet to now," Penn State diving coach Craig Brown said. "We set a goal for certain things we wanted to get done and I can't think of anything we didn't get done in that two-week interim."

Virginia was led by sophomore Andrea Georoff, who was a member of three event wins, including the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events, and anchored the 400-yard medley relay team to victory.

Despite the defeat, Stanchock said the attitude for this meet was a lot different than the Florida meet, which played a role in the significant turnaround.

"The Florida meet was a huge disappointment and we knew we had to have a better attitude," Stanchock said. "Everyone was more excited and had a much better attitude and one person being more positive was contagious throughout the whole team."

On Saturday the Lions took a reduced squad to the Bucknell Sprint Invitational. Dorrenkott said the Invitational provided some of his swimmers the opportunity to get some race experience and extra work in early in the season.