A third-quarter rally pushed the water polo club to a 20-10 victory over Maryland on Saturday, giving it the Mid-Atlantic Conference championship at its own tournament.

Earlier Saturday morning, Penn State lost to Bucknell, 12-11, but rebounded with the win over Maryland. On Friday night, Penn State opened the tournament with a 23-2 victory over Millersville. The Lions won the conference title with the wins over Maryland and Millersville, which complete the conference.

"I think the morale of the team is real high right now," player Ted Vickey said, "which is good going into the Mid-Atlantic conference (tournament) because we need all the morale we can get because we are playing top quality teams there."

Against Maryland, Penn State held a 7-5 lead going into the third quarter, but exploded for six goals to take a 13-8 advantage.

Laurent Wainer keyed the run with three goals in the quarter, which followed a sluggish first half when Maryland scored the last two goals. Wainer added two goals later, finishing with five.

"That (the third quarter) is our best quarter usually," Wainer said. "That is when we really get psyched and also mentally you can psyche out a team if you destroy them one quarter from the end."

"I don't mind if the score is close at halftime because I know the third period we are going to crush," player/coach Steve Johnson said.

Vickey elicited shouts of "Ted" from the crowd with his two goals at the end of the third quarter. Vickey had four goals in the game.

Penn State kept the momentum going into the fourth quarter, forcing Maryland to try for quick goals by keeping a player near the Lions' goal for the last five minutes of the game.

While the Maryland game gave Penn State the championship, Saturday's early game against Bucknell was the most exciting of the weekend.

Bucknell opened the scoring at 6:29 of the first quarter. The game was tied, 1-1, when Carleton Yoder scored at 5:25. But Yoder had to leave the game after he scored for an equipment adjustment. And with Yoder out of the hole position, the offense was pushed out further from the goal.

"All the hole sets had problems," he said. "We would set them too far out."

Dennis Wood converted a Vickey steal to tie the game, 2-2, with 48 seconds left in the first quarter. The momentum turned when Johnson was ejected from the game for disrespect with 1:48 left in the half.

"He (the referee) was trying to set an example," Johnson said. "He was trying to let everyone know he wasn't going to take any crap from anybody, even the captains."

"Steve's the leader of the team. He does the coaching," Vickey said. "When he got kicked out I think we didn't know what was going on at first. We were disorganized."

Bucknell opened an 8-4 lead before Penn State started another third- quarter rally by scoring three of the last four third-quarter goals, the last by Wood on a four meter (penalty shot) with seven seconds remaining.

Vickey and Wood rallied the Lions in the fourth. Vickey scored after 13 seconds and Wood tied the game at 5:04 off a Wainer pass. Penn State took the lead when T.J. Arrowsmith connected off a pass from Wood.

"They were really rocked after we scored -- we took the lead," Vickey said. "They didn't know what was going on."

Bucknell called a timeout at 4:13 and regrouped to score the next three goals.

"They seemed to come back and take away the momentum again," Wood said.

Vickey scored the last two of his four goals off passes from Yoder and tied the game, 11-11, with 30 seconds left.

"I was cutting in the back door," Vickey said. "The defender wasn't covering me. He was sloughing the hole and I just got the pass and threw it in."

Bucknell's John Ambrose finished the scoring when he converted with just 22 seconds left, giving Bucknell a 12-11 lead.

On Friday night, Rob Corro ignited the rout of Millersville with two unassisted goals from steals in the game's opening minute. This touched off a 9-1 first quarter run.

The club will next compete in the Mid-Atlantic Conference Tournament, Nov. 4-5 at Navy.