It could be said that the Penn State women's golf team is entering a lion's den this weekend at the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championships.

By most accounts, that would be an accurate description, considering the 15-team field is loaded with 13 of the NCAA's top-40 teams, including No. 1 Georgia and nine other top-25 members. Add the Swedish Junior National Team and it's a stacked field.

The Mercedes-Benz, hosted by the University of Tennessee, will take place at 8:30 each morning, today through Sunday, at the Cherokee Country Club in Knoxville, Tenn.

Even though the Nittany Lions will be going up against stiff competition, the team appears more than ready for this weekend.

"We think we can definitely do well this year because we're very confident in ourselves, especially since we just came off of a win on our home course," senior Evelyn Paik said.

While some teams become tense at the thought of competing against the country's best, the women's golf team is excited to see how it measures up.

"Anytime you have an opportunity to play against the best teams in the country you like to see how it plays out," head coach Denise St. Pierre said.

"You've got a couple of Big Ten teams that did better than we did at the Lady Northern Invitation earlier this year and we want to move ahead of them and show them that we are a great team."

A lot of the confidence can be attributed to the guidance that the team has gotten from Paik and fellow senior Maggie Lester. Both have individual collegiate titles under their belts. Lester won the 2005 Nittany Lion Invitational and Paik captured the same title this year. They are the team's core and influence the play of everyone else.

"We have some great leadership with Evelyn coming off of her victory and Maggie has always been strong for us," St. Pierre said.

"And they have both played [Cherokee] before which is always a bonus, so we have a reason to be optimistic."

St. Pierre is as confident as anyone; she says the team has improved a lot since its first tournament of the season and she is ready to see what it can do now that it's had time to practice.

"For the team's sake, I hope everyone shows up for three days and plays well because I think it's going to help us move forward," St. Pierre said. "I feel more comfortable and the team feels more comfortable. We have nothing to lose, we have the talent and the ability to finish in the top-10 or even top-5 but nobody expects much from us, so we have everything to gain and I am optimistic that we can do it."

Lester put it in much simpler terms.

"I feel amazing about this weekend. We're excited to go out there and show what we can do."