The men's volleyball team began its season this weekend with a third- place finish in an exhibition tournament in Calgary.

The Lions lost the tournament's first match to Canadian National Champion Calgary, 15-13, 7-15, 7-15, 13-15. The Lions next disposed of Winnipeg, 15-9, 15-7, 15-6, and finally defeated defending NCAA Champion UCLA, 13-15, 15-12, 13-15, 15-12, 17-15.

"The real test for us ... was UCLA," Coach Tom Peterson said. "I felt if we could beat them the rest of the weekend didn't matter as much."

The win over UCLA will count on Penn State's schedule, but the matches with the Canadian teams will not. They are ruled as international matches, so technically, the Lions are now 1-0.

The loss to Calgary was avenged the next day when the Lions beat the team in a best of three game non-tournament match, 15-7, 13-15, 17- 15.

"Third place in a four-team tournament may not sound too good," Peterson said, "but under the circumstances, it wasn't that bad."

All four teams finished the scheduled portion of the round robin tournament with only one loss, forcing them to enter a tiebreaker round based on a point system. The Lions drew Winnipeg and won, 15-8, 16-14, 17- 16. Still, the victory was only good enough to take the bronze medal.

Lion Guillo Silva, who plays opposite the setter, made the All-Tournament team.

"All of our guys played well," Peterson said. "The idea of the tournament was to get together two of the best Canadian teams and two of the best American teams, and that happened."

Before opening regular season play, the Lions will appear in two more exhibition tournaments, the first Nov. 4 at Navy and the second Nov. 11 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.