The Wildcats open the second half of their conference season today against No. 19 Ohio State (14-5, 7-3 Big Ten) and play No. 3 Penn State (19-2, 10-0) on Saturday.

While Northwestern hasn’t had the winning season it hoped for after finishing its pre-conference slate at 9-1, the Cats are still aiming for the NCAA tournament.

Penn State remains as a formidable challenge to NU this weekend. The Cats lost to both Ohio State and Penn State when the teams squared off in Evanston earlier this month, but coach Keylor Chan is confident about his team’s chances.

NU (12-8, 3-7) is tied for seventh with Michigan State. Penn State is alone atop the Big Ten while Ohio State is tied for third.

“In the Big Ten, you never know what’s going to happen on each night,” said junior setter Lauren Greenwood after NU’s first Big Ten home win Oct. 15 against Indiana. “Anybody can beat anybody.”

Junior middle blocker Julie Purcell said after an Oct. 21 win against Michigan that the Cats need to work on composure in tough situations to compete with conference foes.

NU beat Michigan last Friday 3-0 but lost to Michigan State 3-2 on Saturday. The Cats’ playing was inconsistent Saturday as they won games one and three but lost the second, third and fifth games.

Defense was especially on and off, which cost NU the chance to run a successful offense. The Cats had nine serve-recieve errors during the match against Michigan State.

“We’re a team where everything is based on our ball control. When we have good ball control, we’re pretty good. If we don’t, we struggle,” Chan said after the Oct. 15 win against Indiana.

Chan said after the Indiana match that the top-three teams in the Big Ten – Minnesota, Penn State and Wisconsin – were all but unbeatable. But he felt confident the Cats could beat any of the other teams.

“Any of the teams in the five-to-11 range can win on any given night,” Chan said. “We’re one of those teams right now and we’re working to get better.”

Reach Annie Martin at [email protected].