After going two years without a Big Ten win, a streak broken against Ohio State this season, the Penn State women's tennis team is getting a second opportunity to take it to the Buckeyes.

The Nittany Lions (7-11, 2-8 Big Ten) enter the Big Ten Tournament as the No. 8 seed and will face the No. 9 seed Ohio State (7-18, 2-8) at 10 a.m. today in East Lansing, Mich., in the first round.

Penn State finished its season on an upswing by soundly defeating Michigan State, 5-2, last weekend, but then dropped a tough match to No. 40 Michigan that came down to the final two singles matches.

The solid finish ensured a No. 8 seed for the Lions and put the team on course for a rematch with the Buckeyes. In the teams' regular season meeting, the Lions played one of their best singles matches of the season to come back after dropping the doubles point.

No. 1 Maaria Husain sealed that victory with a come-from-behind three-set win, supported by straight-set wins from Katelyn BeVard, Andreea Niculescu and Jenny Shular.

While the win was significant as the Lions' first conference win, it also provided a measure of revenge against the team that defeated Penn State in the first round of the Big Ten tournament last season. Now the Lions have a chance to come full circle from that result with a second defeat of Ohio State.

"I'm excited to get revenge with a rematch there," Penn State coach Buffy Baker said. "I think once you come to Big Tens it's almost a new slate again. Even though we beat them in regular season, we can't assume anything."

The team is most anxious to get a chance to take on the Buckeyes in doubles again after dropping two of the three matches the first time around. After splitting the doubles matches at No. 1 and 2, the Lions seemed to be in control when Niculescu and Jess McKeown got up 5-2 at No. 3. The wheels came off at that point, though, and the pair lost the final six games of the match to give the Buckeyes the point.

Staying mentally tough and maintaining control in situations like that will be keys for the team to get the doubles point and some momentum going into singles.

"I'm excited to play them again, just purely to play doubles again because I thought it was a very disappointing doubles loss of the ones that we've lost this year," Baker said.

One element working in the Lions' favor is that the team will be going at the Buckeyes with a new lineup from the schools' previous meeting. With Husain and Shular at No. 1 and Spence and Abraham at No. 2, the Lions feel that whoever they face will be in for a battle.

" I don't think it matters [who we play]," Husain said. "We're going to go in there and keep competing, the energy is really high. We all really want it bad."