With hopes of winning the American Lacrosse Conference and making it back to the NCAA Tournament dwindling, the Penn State women's lacrosse team is looking to salvage its season this weekend and finish with strong wins.

The Nittany Lions (5-8, 1-1 ALC) will play their last away games this weekend, first meeting Ohio State (2-10, 1-1) at 5 p.m. today at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium and then traveling to Ohio University (4-10, 0-4) to conclude the weekend with a 1 p.m. game Sunday at Peggy Pruitt Field.

After the 19-9 loss to No. 2 Northwestern on Sunday, the Lions extended their losing streak to three and fell out of the top 20 in the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) poll. The drastic gap in the loss and the numbers on paper, however, did not reflect how the team played. The Lions are now hoping to take the good and the bad and use it to their advantage.

"We are going to take a lot of good things from Sunday. When we were on our attack movement and we were meeting the defense, I thought we were very good," Penn State women's lacrosse coach Suzanne Isidor said. "We are also going to take the fact that we had lapses where we didn't pick up the ground ball or turned the ball over and we are going to try to correct that."

The Lions showed promise Sunday when they came out in the second half and came within four goals of the Wildcats. Junior Karen Long provided much of the offense for the team, scoring three goals for her first career hat trick. Long, a reserve, showed the depth of the Lions' bench with her goals.

The bad, however, came in ground balls and shooting. Penn State had 18 ground balls to Northwestern's 27 and only picked up seven in the second half. Despite taking 29 shots, only nine went in the net, and the team converted just one of its eight free-position shots.

"We lost against Northwestern, but the score doesn't reflect the way we played and the way that our attitudes have changed in the past week," junior Cammie Jurkowsky said. "We've been very positive. Everyone's been pushing each other to get better and to win the next three games and finish the season with wins, 'cause it's possible."

Neither Ohio State nor Ohio should be as formidable as the Wildcats. Penn State has a 7-2 record over the Buckeyes and a 5-1 record over the Bobcats. The Lions have not beaten a ranked team all season so there will be no excuse if they lose this weekend, since both teams are unranked.

Despite the inconsistency of the season, the tough losses and injuries to crucial players, team morale is high and the Lions are looking to finish out the season with their heads held high.

"[The team morale] is good. We are here to win. We are here to play and win," Isidor said. "It doesn't matter what is going on around us, we are going out to Ohio to win."