MADISON, Wis. -- The final game of the NCAA volleyball championship was the quintessential example of David vs. Goliath.

Goliath was Long Beach State, the preseason No. 1 team, the winningest team in country the past four years and a Final Four participant four of the last five seasons. Not to mention the fact that it had National Player-of-the-Year Danielle Scott and two other All-Americans, Nichelle Burton and Joy McKienzie.

Playing the role of David were the Lady Lions, who were making their first ever trip to the Final Four, with only one senior, Angie Farlow, and one All-American, setter Salima Davidson.

This story, however, didn't have such a happy ending for David. While Goliath was surprised, staggered and at times looked beaten, he recovered just in time to thwart David's valiant effort.

So it was Goliath, or Long Beach State in this case, who walked off with the NCAA championship with a thrilling 15-13, 12-15, 15-11, 16-14 win.

"On paper we had no reason to be out there," Penn State Coach Russ Rose said. "Those 'no-name' kids played their tails off out there, and I'm very proud of the performance they gave."

It looked as though the Lady Lions might have run out of miracles on their road to the final game. Long Beach State jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead in game one.

Then something happened. Led by Jen Reimers (25 kills), Zeynep Ton (13 kills) and inspired team defense, Penn State began to play the same kind of volleyball it had played en route to the final -- much to the delight of the partisan Big Ten crowd of 11,114 that packed the University of Wisconsin Fieldhouse. The crowd erupted when Laura Cook served up an ace to give the Lady Lions their first lead at 13-12.

"I think we were a little nervous in the beginning," Davidson said. "We played like Penn State the second half of that game."

Unfortunatly for the Lady Lions, the 49ers refused to die and made a comeback of their own to win the game.

The Lady Lions started to show signs of life and for the next 2 games out-played, out-hustled and thoroughly staggered the powerful 49ers.

After winning game two, the Lady Lions were up 11-7 in game three when Long Beach State awakened and ran off eight unanswered points to win the game.

"You have to win close games in a championship final," Long Beach State Coach Brian Gimmillaro said. "We started adjusting correctly to what they were doing."

The Lady Lions also had a lead in game four when they went up 14-11 and were serving for the game. But Penn State just could not muster up one more point as Scott blocked Jenny Myszewski's kill attempt to end the match.

"I thought we had every opportunity to win the match," Rose said. "We were just unable to finish Long Beach off in situations where we had pretty significant leads."

The Lady Lions, however, have no reason to hang their heads. Not many people would have picked them to be playing for the national championship this season.

"I thought this group of athletes played very hard together and worked hard together," Rose said. "I thought they earned the opportunity to play for the national championship. I thought they competed hard and they just came up empty in the end."

With only one senior graduating, next year Penn State might be the Goliaths.