One and done yet again.

The No. 1 seed Penn State women's soccer team bowed out of the Big Ten Tournament in a first-round upset loss to host Wisconsin.

The defeat was reminiscent of last season when the Nittany Lions fell to Illinois in their opening post-season match after previously trouncing the Fighting Illini 4-0 in the regular season.

The Lions (16-3-2, 9-2) were favored to win the tournament the last two years after claiming their fifth and sixth-straight Big Ten regular season titles.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Badgers were handed their worst loss in five years when they left Happy Valley with a 5-0 defeat.

But they got another shot at the conference champs last Thursday and held Penn State to a scoreless tie after 90 minutes of regulation and two ten-minute overtimes. When it came down to a penalty kick shootout, the Lions were outscored 4-3, missing opportunities on their last two attempts.

"We only practiced penalty kicks about four hours before the game and that was really the only time we did all season," Penn State women's soccer coach Paula Wilkins said. "There was a lack of preparation on my part for that."

When a soccer match comes down to a shootout, though, the better team might not always win. A few well-placed shots, a good guess by the goalkeeper and a little bit of luck could go in favor of either competitor.

The Badgers won in the shootout, but the victory should be attributed to the 110 minutes of unyielding defense they put up beforehand.

The Lions boast the top two goal scorers in the Big Ten with Tiffany Weimer (19) and Joanna Lohman (15), and fired nearly three times the number of shots on goal than any of their many opponents.

"Wisconsin had a really good game plan," Wilkins said. "They put a lot of people behind the ball with seven or eight players in the box and they only attacked with one or two players most of the time."

She added that of her teams' 27 fruitless shots, only a handful were legitimately good tries.

The underdog proved that there was a way to slow Penn State's fervent attack and executed its plan with passion on its home turf.

"It was a dire situation for them playing in front of their home crowd," Wilkins said. "For us, it wasn't so much as a lot of the players are looking forward to the NCAA tournament."

And after another disappointing showing in the conference play-offs, that is exactly where she has her sights set for the team.

The Lions were out on a rock-solid Jeffrey Field yesterday practicing for the upcoming opportunity.

"I just got in from practice," Wilkins said yesterday. "We've still got a season to play here."