The Penn State women's tennis team's hot streak to open the season hit a cold patch when it dropped a 5-2 decision to Pennsylvania on Friday.

The Nittany Lions opened the season on Jan. 28 with a 7-0 sweep of American and then followed up that victory with a 6-1 rout of Temple the next day. Getting two wins in those matches was important for the team because facing Penn would be the team's first real test for the season. The Quakers feature two freshmen ranked in the top 100 nationally.

In the doubles matches, the Lions ended up dropping all three matches to Penn. At first doubles, seniors Maaria Husain and Sarah Spence got down 1-4 early in the match, but broke back and managed to keep the match on serve until slipping up late and falling 9-7.

Sophomores Sasha Abraham and Katelyn BeVard dropped their match at second doubles by an 8-2 score, and sophomore Andreea Niculescu and freshman Jenny Schular dropped a hard-fought 8-6 match at third.

After picking up the doubles point, Penn looked to have the momentum, earning the first set in each of the first four singles matches. In several of the matches, though, the Lions (2-1) fought back to take their matches the distance. At first singles, Husain played a back-and-forth match before running into a wall in the third, losing 7-6, 2-6, 6-0 to Julia Koulbitskaya. Abraham played a tight match at third singles, eventually losing 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 to Shelah Chao. Spence and BeVard both dropped their matches at second and fourth, respectively, in straight sets. The Lions salvaged a shutout, though, at fifth and sixth singles. Niculescu and Schular both won three set matches to put Penn State on the board.

"We competed well," Penn State coach Buffy Baker said. "We just started slow enough in our matches to let Penn get out early, and then we found our range."

Though the score would indicate that the Quakers won handily, the Lions matched up well.

Penn State has two weeks before matches against Kansas and Yale on Feb. 18 and 20 at home.