Volleyball

7 p.m. Today in Bloomington, Ind.; 8 p.m. Tomorrow in Lafayette, Ind.

The tone in the South Gym of Rec Hall was intense Wednesday afternoon.

While Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose was satisfied with his team's level of play after last weekend's home court defeats of Northwestern and Illinois, he was clearly not satisfied four days later.

"The first two days of practice [after the weekend] were terrible," Rose said.

With the No. 16 Lions (20-4, 9-3) traveling to the Hoos-
ier State to face Indiana (9-14,
2-10) tonight and Purdue (12-11, 5-7) tomorrow night, finding a way to keep the level of play up at the same high level of last weekend will be crucial for success.

"You don't have to look very far [beyond] the fact that Minnesota's in first place in the conference and the two losses they have are to Indiana and Purdue," Rose said. "I know how competitive and how difficult it's going to be to play."

Indiana will present Penn State with a tough attack in the middle, while also having a weapon on the outside in Christina Archibald, one of the conference's top athletes.

Purdue is still feeding off of the energy from its new coach.

And both teams will enter the gym on losing streaks of six games or more, just desperate and hoping for a win over Penn State.

"I think Indiana has struggled a bit so they're going to be a team that's fired up and is going to want a win. And Purdue has a really great team this year too." junior outside hitter Ashley Pederson said.

"Both teams have the potential to go out and kick some big butt."

- By Jenny Vrentas