Megan Hodge was already excited.

Not only was the freshman outside hitter playing in her first Big Ten match, but she was playing well enough to lead the Penn State women's volleyball team to a conference opening win against No. 12 Ohio State.

But what thrilled her even more was that head coach Russ Rose was acting uncharacteristically.

"Coach was actually -- he was being pretty nice tonight," Hodge said. "So that got me excited, too."

All the excitement helped as the No. 2 Nittany Lions started the Big Ten season with a win by defeating the Buckeyes 3-0, (30-21, 31-29, 30-16) at Rec Hall.

Hodge and sophomore outside hitter Nicole Fawcett provided much of the offense for the Lions. Hodge led the way with 23 kills and Fawcett added 13 more for Penn State (12-0, 1-0 Big Ten).

"We knew we'd have trouble matching up with both of them [Hodge and Fawcett]. They're going to be a force to contend with," Ohio State head coach Jim Stone said. "If you're going to beat Penn State, you either have to have your outsides be as good as theirs or somehow put the game in the hands of other people."

After the Lions took game one, the Buckeyes (10-1, 0-1) got back in the match in game two and forced ties at 27, 28 and 29. But after a timely Hodge kill, the Lions gained match point, won the game and ran away with game three.

"If you lose that second game, you don't know really what effect it has on young players," Rose said. "That's the benefit of playing at home. If we would have played at Ohio State, things could have been different."

Sophomore outside hitter Christa Harmotto said that matches against nationally ranked Texas and Louisiana State, both five-game wins for Penn State, adequately prepared the team for close games and matches.

"We're learning how to keep out composure in those types of matches," the co-captain said. "We've learned from the Texas match as well as the LSU match as far as keeping our composure when the games are tight."

Practice makes perfect?

By simply watching last night's match or seeing the final score, you wouldn't know that the Lions had what Rose called a "pretty scary" day of practice on Tuesday afternoon.

Rose was upset with the lack of maturity his players showed during practice, but was pleased that they were able to bounce back and put together a strong performance against the Buckeyes.

"Everyone just kind of had an off day," freshman setter Alisha Glass said. "Usually, someone has a bad day one time and somebody has a bad day another time, but it seemed like everyone was kind of having a bad day. So we just had to come out the next and show that we weren't like that."

The team had a meeting before yesterday's pre-match practice to make sure everyone was on the same page.

"Every team has its moments," Harmotto said. "If you have a bad practice you need how to learn to bounce back from it."