This is it. The seniors will dance one last time.

"This is March Madness for us," Penn State assistant women's soccer coach Tim Rosenfeld said. "It's the greatest time of the year. Some players can become heroes and step into roles they're not accustomed to and set new thresholds in some uncomfortable situations, but they're absolutely going to respond to it."

At 5 tonight at Jeffrey Field, seven Penn State seniors will begin their last NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament, as No. 1 seed Penn State (19-0-1) will take on Bucknell (11-8-1). The winner of that game will take on the winner of the Hofstra vs. West Virginia game Sunday afternoon, also at Jeffrey Field.

The team will likely be without junior co-captain Ali Krieger for the first weekend of the Big Dance. Krieger was seen on crutches at practice yesterday afternoon, and Penn State women's soccer coach Paula Wilkins said she is day to day.

If the Nittany Lions advance through the weekend, they will have already improved on last year's second-round elimination, when Penn State fell to Maryland 3-2, perhaps the biggest upset of the tournament as the Lions are nearly unbeatable at home.

Again they are coping with an early loss in a postseason tournament. The Lions maintained one of the four No. 1 seeds despite dropping a first-round game of the Big Ten Tournament against Michigan in penalty kicks.

The team remains optimistic, however.

"We did some things we needed to do and you look at the tape of overtime and we dominated," Rosenfeld said. "We have the ability to beat that team, and we played well enough to beat that team and we responded well to being down a goal.

"I think we look at that loss, and even though it hurt like crazy, there were good things with it that happened there that you can look at like we're destined for great things this year."

Wilkins admitted earlier in the week that the Lions overlooked teams in the earlier rounds of last year's tournament, as they eagerly looked ahead to possible contests with Princeton and Washington.

Even though recent postseason history has been sketchy, the future is equally uncertain. This may be Penn State's best shot to make some noise, as they will lose seven seniors including pre-season All-Americans Natalie Jacobs, Erin McLeod and Tiffany Weimer, along with co-Big Ten Defender of the Year Lindsay Bach.

Senior forward Carmelina Moscato's motto for this season has been "now or never."

"Everything's on the line," Moscato said. "You just think about all the hard work you've put in, everything that you've done, every sprint, every little fitness thing. Everything comes together into one almost final test. It's gonna be a final test every single game, because it's literally 90 minutes away from being over."

As for those who won't depart after this season, the best thing for the team may have been the loss to Michigan. Even though Penn State did not win the Big Ten Tournament last year, the vibe around practice is completely different heading into this year's NCAAs.

"This loss this year did more for us than Ohio State in the finals [of the Big Ten Tournament] did last year," Rosenfeld said. "We had gotten to the finals, and we let down. This year we're more on edge and realize we may be vulnerable."

The Lions will be at home the remainder of the season until the College Cup, the equivalent of the Final Four, until the first week of December.

"This is an opportunity for us," Rosenfeld said. "We're the No. 1 seed. We're home all the way through and [we] remember what happened to us last year"

But they won't look ahead this time, taking this dance one step at a time.