The Michiganders are coming.

No. 5 Penn State (14-1, 5-1 Big Ten), fresh off a Hoosier State rout of Indiana and Purdue, takes on Michigan (14-3, 4-2) and Michigan State (6-8, 1-5) this weekend back in State College.

Don't be fooled by Michigan State's less than stellar record. The Spartans were one of the toughest foils for the Nittany Lions last season, forcing the match to five-games before the Lions could finally finish them off.

The Lions-Spartans matchup has gone to five games the last three times the teams met.

"That should be enough for our players to know that this team will pose some challenges," Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose said.

"Kim Schram has had some monster matches against us. Michigan State is a good volleyball team and we can't look at their record and make a judgement of how good they are."

Schram, the Spartans senior outside hitter, leads her team in kills, averaging 4.66 per game. A list of top Big Ten performers wouldn't be complete without Schram, a first team All-Big Ten pick last year and an American Volleyball Coaches Association All-American honorable mention honoree.

The Spartans have been inconsistent at times, beating No. 24 Florida A&M in East Lansing, Mich. in a three-game sweep, but they've lost tough matches against tough teams -- No. 1 Washington, No. 2 Minnesota, and No. 23 Illinois. A loss to perennial Big Ten bottom-feeder Iowa did raise some eyebrows around the conference, but the Spartans 2004 campaign has been rattled by injuries. The Wolverines, on the other hand, are a team with the potential to make a statement this weekend.

Stuck in the "others receiving votes category", Michigan is coming off a heartbreaking five-game loss to No. 23 Illinois last Friday night.

Two of the Wolverines three losses this season have come against ranked opponents, the loss to Illinois and a loss to then No. 1 Minnesota. They did manage to pull off a win over No. 22 Tennessee, but lost a bad match to Western Michigan in five games.

"I think the only thing we can control is how hard we play," Cassy Salyer said. "We need to go into every match expecting to win."

Lions Freshman Kate Price, a Michigander herself, is particularly excited to go up against her home-state's teams.

"When I was coming in, coach talked about how we've never lost [back-to-back matches in one weekend] against the two Michigans, and we're not going to," Price said. "It will be more exciting for me when we play at Michigan later in the season, but I still want to beat them really bad."

Saturday night's game against Michigan State will be broadcast on tape-delay Sunday at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN2.