With the first in a quartet of goals already accomplished, the Penn State women's volleyball team set out this weekend to cross the second objective off the list -- go undefeated in the conference. The No. 2 Nittany Lions (29-2, 20-0 Big Ten) swept Michigan on Saturday (30-21, 30-13, 30-27), becoming only the sixth team since 1985 to go perfect in the Big Ten.

After clinching the outright conference title two weekends ago, the Lions made it a priority not to drop a match to a conference foe. Penn State succeeded, as Russ Rose's crew has not lost so much as a single game since Oct. 28 against Wisconsin, one month ago today. It's been over two months since the Lions dropped two games in one match.

"Not many teams have done this, and it feels even better after this weekend," senior setter and co-captain Sam Tortorello said. "Even though we know we won the Big Ten conference, we feel like we accomplished another one of our goals."

With her tenth assist on Saturday, Tortorello passed four-time All-American Bonnie Bremner on the Penn State career assists list.

Tortorello's 5,944 assists as a Lion place her second behind Michelle Jaworski of the late 1980s. The Lions started out the weekend by beating Michigan State on Friday. For the road trip, freshman Nicole Fawcett led the team in kills with 32 on .407 hitting. Melissa Walbridge led the Lions with a .571 attack percentage while committing zero errors.

Freshman Laura Holloway saw action at right side hitter, as Cassy Salyer was moved to the middle to compensate for the loss of injured freshman middle hitter Christa Harmotto.

"The very first game we played this weekend was a little shaky," Tortorello said of the new arrangement. "We were working things out, but every practice we've had this week and every game we've played we've gotten better and better with it."

With the first goal being the conference championship and the second being an unblemished conference record, the Lions now have a better idea of what it will take to accomplish the final two aims -- a Final Four berth and a national championship.

The seeding and pairings for the NCAA Tournament were released yesterday as the team watched on television from Rec Hall.

The Lions, No. 2 seed overall and top seed in the State College region, will host all four rounds leading up to the Final Four, which will be played in San Antonio.

Penn State's first-round match is against Binghamton on Friday. Should the Lions win, they would face the winner of Cornell-Long Island.

"Every team in the tournament would want to be playing every tournament game at home until they had the chance to go to the Final Four," Tortorello said of the opportunity to compete at Rec Hall for two more weeks.

Other marquee teams in Penn State's region include Hawaii, Texas, Missouri and Tennessee, as well as conference foe Minnesota.

Mum's the word

Rose has not disclosed the exact injury to middle hitter Christa Harmotto due to privacy stipulations in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, which prohibits the release of "individually identifiable health information to another person." The disclosure of the official amount of time Harmotto will miss is also prohibited by this act, which carries a maximum fine of $50,000 and one year in prison. It is, however, believed that Harmotto will miss the remainder of the season.