The Penn State women's soccer team is holding a spring play day this Saturday in Holuba Hall, starting at 7 p.m. In the marquee matchup, Penn State faces Connecticut at 8:40 p.m. and then again at 11:10 p.m. The play day will feature three teams: Penn State, Connecticut, and the PA Strikers, a premier U-17 girls club team from Langhorne.

Penn State starts action against the Strikers at 7 p.m., then play Connecticut at 8:40 p.m. It faces the Strikers again at 9:30 p.m. The Nittany Lions will round out action against Connecticut at 11:10 p.m. A complete schedule of the evening's events follows.

Other matches include: a match between the Strikers and Connecticut at 7:50 p.m.; and another match between those two teams at 10:20 p.m.

The Nittany Lions finished the 2004 season with a 19-3-1 record and earned a program-best No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. Penn State also won its seventh-straight regular season Big Ten crown.

Junior attackman Nate Whitaker (Great Falls, Va.) was selected to the 2005 Eastern College Athletic Conference preseason all-league first team in a recent vote by Eastern College Athletic Conference coaches.

Whitaker led the Nittany Lions in points (31), goals (18) and assists (13) last season and contributed with 19 ground balls. He earned first-team ECAC all-league honors and received the Friends of Penn State Lacrosse Top Scorer Award for his 18 goals in 13 games. Whitaker was selected as ECAC Offensive Player of the Week for scoring three goals and three assists against Villanova and was named to the ECAC Weekly Honor Roll on three occasions last year for performances against Mt. Saint Mary's, Georgetown and Fairfield.

Last Saturday, No. 21 Penn State defeated No. 14 Ohio State in its season opener, 9-7. Whitaker scored three goals to improve his scoring streak to 28 games. He has scored in every game he has played in as a Lion.

Penn State will battle No. 10 Notre Dame at 1 p.m. on Sunday. The Lions then host Loyola in their ECAC opener at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 5.

Penn State's Luis Vargas (Rio Pedros, Puerto Rico) has been named this week's Big Ten Men's Gymnast of the Week, marking the second time the junior all-around athlete has received the honor this season. Vargas is the defending NCAA champion in the all-around and has continued to dominate this season as evidenced by his first-place ranking nationally on the pommel horse and in the all-around.

Vargas won the Gene Wettstone Award after leading then-No. 5 Penn State to a victory against then-No. 4 Michigan on Saturday. He took home the all-around crown as well as claiming first-place finishes in four events against the Wolverines. Vargas set a career high with a score of 9.900 on the high bar, the second-highest mark in school history. He also established personal bests on the pommel horse (9.800), rings (9.500) and vault (9.500). He also won the all-around with a 56.975, currently the highest score in the nation and his own personal best.

Fourth-ranked Penn State is in action this Saturday at Rec Hall against No. 2 Ohio State in a double dual meet with the women's team.