During a weekend when the number of undefeated teams in the country dropped from four to two, the No. 2 Penn State women's volleyball team remained unbeaten in victories at Northwestern and Illinois.

The Nittany Lions defeated the Wildcats, 3-0 (30-26, 30-26, 30-22) on Friday night and the Illini, 3-0 (34-32, 30-23, 32-30), yesterday afternoon.

The scores were relatively closer than what the Lions (19-0, 8-0 Big Ten) have experienced during their conference schedule, but head coach Russ Rose was still pleased to head back to State College with the wins.

"To win the Big Ten you have to be able to win on the road," Rose said. "We won all the games we played this weekend. We'll work on the things we need to work on, but feel good about winning."

Yesterday against Illinois (12-6, 3-5), sophomore outside hitter Nicole Fawcett led the Lions with 20 kills and a .531 hitting percentage.

Freshman outside hitter Megan Hodge recorded 25 kills with a .321 percentage Friday night against Northwestern (9-8, 3-5).

Friday, while Penn State was playing the Wildcats, No. 6 Stanford was busy finishing its second of two consecutive wins against an undefeated team, single-handedly cutting the number of the nation's unbeaten teams in half.

The Cardinal knocked off No. 3 UCLA and No. 4 Southern California, leaving Penn State and No. 1 Nebraska as the only teams in the country without a loss.

"It puts a target on your back," freshman setter Alisha Glass said. "The fact that there are only two teams left that are undefeated and you're one of them. It challenges us to be at our best."

The Lions were admittedly not at their best this weekend while adjusting to what players said were two teams in Northwestern and Illinois that were more consistent than other teams Penn State has played.

"Any time you get two wins you're happy, but the way we played wasn't necessarily as we had wanted to," Fawcett said.

Said Glass: "They challenged us. Both teams kept a lot of balls in play, which was different from what we were used to."

Illinois, playing without its leader in kills, Kayani Turner, did force the Lions into two extra-point games but were unable to hand Penn State what would have been just its second loss in a game during the conference season.

Nearly halfway through the Big Ten season, the Lions have dropped just one game, which was to No. 23 Minnesota two weekends ago, and have swept all other ranked teams from the conference -- Purdue, Wisconsin and Ohio State.

Penn State also holds non-conference wins against No. 10 Texas and No. 13 Louisiana State, but still, Rose isn't dismissing the possibility of a loss along the way.

"The fact that we haven't lost a match yet doesn't mean that's something that can't happen," Rose said.

And now sitting near the top of women's volleyball heap, the Lions know that more teams will be gunning for an upset win.

"It's hard to go through a complete season going undefeated," Fawcett said. "It's a nice thing to see [being one of two undefeated teams], but we know that we're even more so a bigger target."