Forward Kelly Heiser said the Lady Lions will play Iowa and Michigan this weekend with no sticks barred.

“We have our second chance (at Iowa),” Heiser said. “We will not leave anything undone this time.”

The Lady Lions played stride for stride with the brutal Hawkeyes on Oct. 4, and they had plenty of opportunities to score, but did not convert. They plan to play a similar game this time, except this time they plan to win.

“We’re not trying to do anything different,” Stewart said. “We out played them last time.”

But they didn’t win, losing 2-1 in a last minute heartbreaker. The Lady Lions did, however, make their entrance into the Big Ten known.

The Lady Lions are now part of the round-robin competition of the Big Ten, which gives them a second shot at the brutal Hawkeyes.

This time, No. 3 Penn State has to face the undefeated No. 2 Hawkeyes without the skill of junior defender Becca Main. Main dislocated her shoulder during practice this week, and will be out for two weeks. Main was a vital cog in the Lady Lion defense, and was the snuffer on penalty corners. The Hawkeyes scored the winning goal against Penn State on a penalty corner.

Main will be replaced by Sharon Kuntz, who was a starter last year.

In their Oct. 4 meeting, both teams dominated on offense and defense, but the match was a stalemate. Until the Hawkeye’s Kristy Gleason scored on a penalty corner with one minute left. Stewart said the Lady Lions failed to convert on some key opportunities. She says it will not happen again.

“We’ve got to take chances,” Stewart said. “We’ve got nothing to lose. They see us as the underdogs, and we plan to take full advantage of that vision, we’re going to beat them on their home turf.”

Since the loss to Iowa, the Lady Lions have played some lackluster field hockey beating Penn 1-0 and both Michigan schools by a 2-1 margin.

Iowa Coach Beth Beglin said she feels that Penn State was just looking past the smaller games to its rematch with Iowa.

“The Big Ten is such a powerful conference that if you try to look past a team you get tripped up,” Beglin said. “We’ve been guilty of the same things in the past few weeks. We just haven’t been playing well the past two weeks.”

One source of consistency for the Lady Lions has been Chris McGinley, who is currently the second highest scorer in the NCAA behind Iowa’s Gleason. McGinley is eighth on all-time scoring list at Penn State.

Heiser said that obviously, they cannot look past Iowa, but she feels the Lady Lions had an intense week of practice.

“If we play the game that we played last time,” Heiser said. “We will beat them. We’re just too intense to lose.”