The No. 10 Penn State men's volleyball team will look to improve on its early-season performance against St. Francis, when the Nittany Lions took four games to defeat the Red Flash at Rec Hall.

Penn State (8-3, 4-0 EIVA) will travel to Loretto tonight, where it will square off against Div. III St. Francis (5-9, 0-5 ) at 7. The match will be the second of six straight matches against EIVA opponents for Penn State. The Red Flash is the only EIVA team to take a game from Penn State this year, as the Lions will look to extend their 23-game EIVA winning streak tonight.

However, Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik said that the Lions need to be dominant in their EIVA matches. Pavlik was disappointed with his team's effort after the teams' first match earlier this season. He called the Lions' play unemotional and said that St. Francis outworked Penn State.

"When we played them here, I was impressed with [St. Francis'] intensity," Pavlik said. "They tracked balls down and passed our serves well, but we were able to contain them offensively."

St. Francis is the only team other than Lewis to not be swept by the Lions at Rec Hall. Red Flash players repeatedly dove into the bleachers and ran into the scorers' table earlier this season, seemingly determined to not go down without a fight.

While St. Francis has lost all five of its EIVA games this season, it has only been swept once, by Concordia.

Freshman setter Dan O'Dell said that he expects Penn State to come out with more intensity than it did the last time the teams played, and the Lions should be able to escape with a three-game sweep. O'Dell has taken over the starting setter position since the match against Lewis during the Penn State Invitational, and said that he is getting more comfortable with every match.

"My teammates and I are starting to connect better," O'Dell said. "I'm starting to learn their strengths and weaknesses."

Pavlik said that he has been happy with the way O'Dell and the rest of the team has been playing in practice the last two weeks. With the Lions in the midst of a six-game stretch against EIVA opponents, good practices are imperative to keep the team sharp as Penn State will face stronger teams like BYU and Long Beach State during spring break.

"Players have a choice like everyone else," Pavlik said. "They can choose to practice hard and play well or they can choose to float through. Whatever they choose, we'll be able to tell in the long run."

Lions co-captain Zach Slenker will play tonight despite an injury to his right, hitting hand. Pavlik said Slenker's nerve injury is the result of prior injuries.

Slenker broke his right hand last fall and partially dislocated his shoulder in the team's EIVA final match last spring. Doctors have told both Pavlik and Slenker that the worst thing for the hand is inactivity, so the senior outside hitter will play tonight before undergoing surgery tomorrow. Pavlik said that he doesn't expect Slenker to miss any game action.