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GOLDANDBLACK EXPRESS • VOLUME 25, EXPRESS 8 • 39 BY TRAVIS BAUGH TBaugh@Purdue.edu T he biggest challenge of the young season awaits the volleyball team. After disposing of its first six conference opponents that are a combined 8-20 in Big Ten play, No. 14 Purdue hosts No. 7 Penn State and No. 22 Ohio State this weekend. "The schedule was kind of in our favor to be 6-0 right now," senior Val Nichol said. "Knowing that Penn State is the defending national champ and Ohio State is a highly ranked team as well, I think it's an opportunity for us to see how far we've come as a team throughout the season. "To have executed that the way we did, it's only go- ing to put us in a better position down the road." Defensive specialist Kate Workman knows Purdue will have to play better than it did against Indiana Satur- day if it wants to keep its flawless conference record. The Boilermakers lost Set 2 to the Hoosiers 27-25 and trailed Set 4 23-20 before a late rally. Purdue hit just .242 for the match, well below its sea- son average. "It's always hard playing (in Bloomington)," Work- man said. "They're our rivals and it's always a big deal and they always perform pretty well. This week in practice we watched a lot of tape on what we did wrong and I think that will show and carry into the weekend. I think it will be closer to being more flawless than it was on Saturday." Penn State (16-3, 4-2), which has won seven consecu- tive matches against Purdue, has one of the most dynam- ic offenses in the country. The Nittany Lions lead the nation in hitting percent- age (.352) and rank second in the nation in kills per set (14.84). Middle hitter Nia Grant's .473 hitting percent- age ties for the third-best mark in the country, while set- ter Micha Hancock's 11.41 assists put her in 10th place nationally. Workman said slowing down Penn State's dynamic offense starts with the Boilermakers hitting their spots with their serves. "I think we've done a really, really good job of taking teams out of what they're trying to do with our serving," Workman said. "I think last year, we struggled a bit with our serving and let other teams get on too many offen- sive runs. If we can get the ball on them and they're not passing it to their setter, we can really slow them down. We focused on that a lot during practice this week." Purdue is no slouch offensively, either. The Boilermakers' 14.66 kills per set are the seventh- best mark in the country. Nichol, the setter, said Purdue's balanced effort has led to big numbers collectively on offense. Purdue has four players averaging at least two kills per set in Annie Drews (4.18), Faye Adelaja (2.33), Sam Epenesa (2.25) and KiKi Jones (2.05). "We have so many people that we can count on to come in and put balls away," Nichol said. "We have a lot of people even coming off the bench. If it's not somebody's night, we can have somebody come in and get things PENN STATE, OHIO STATE TO TEST BOILERS Purdue Setter Val Nichol has several options from which to choose on the Boilermaker offense, with four players averaging at least two kills per game.