The men's volleyball team is facing a definite dilemma: How can it maintain its high national ranking (currently No. 2) while simultaneously playing good, consistent matches against its weaker opponents?

"The team concentrates on what it has to do to defeat whatever team is across the net," Assistant Coach Mark Pavlik said. "I tip my hat to the team this year, because there isn't that fall off that other teams have had. We don't care who you are, we're going to play our style of play."

In all aspects of sports, a team must bring a certain mental attitude with it onto the playing arena. For the Lions, it can become extremely difficult to give teams like Eastern Mennonite the same mental preparation that they set aside for teams like No. 5 Stanford.

"(It) is a definite factor, but I think that we can work with it," sophomore middle blocker Kevin Hourican said. "We have a goal in sight -- winning the national championship."

Right about now, that goal is looking very realistic. The team is currently 11-1 and sitting in second place in the most recent American Volleyball Coaches Association poll, behind only UCLA (15-1), which has been No. 1 all season. Concurrently, the Lions are in 3-0 and in first place of the Tait Division of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.

"We have to win every match for the rest of the year if we want to maintain that high ranking," Hourican said. "If we can keep that second place, it will be a great psychological motivation for us at the Final Four."

The team hopes to use its high rankings to propel it into the Final Four. However, once at the Final Four, the Lions have lost their first-round match to the stronger California teams, before salvaging third place with a win over the Midwestern representative.

But this season, the Lions have scheduled more of these stronger West Coast schools during the season, so that they can be more prepared when the Final Four comes along.

"It's real important over the course of the season to get in some good quality teams," Pavlik said. "You have to know how your team will react after we beat a quality team, and after we lose to a quality team. We don't want to wait until the Final Four to have to answer these questions."

To keep the team busy, there are some local schools with men's volleyball teams that can keep the Lions bustling during the season. Unfortunately, none of these teams can keep up with the Lions on the court.

"They are developing right now," Coach Tom Peterson said of the team's conference opponents. "We should not lose to them, but they still have some athletes who can play volleyball."

Because of this dissimilarity and domination that the Lions have over these teams, they are currently sitting comfortably atop the Tait Division of the EIVA. Since their finish in the EIVA largely determines whether or not they are invited to the Final Four, this first-place standing is very important to the Lions.

"If we lose to anybody in the EIVA, it will drop us way down in the rankings," Peterson said. "We have to send a message to the EIVA people that we will win the EIVAs."

The Lions are a combined 98-16 career against the six teams in the Tait Division (East Stroudsburg, Eastern Mennonite, Juniata, George Mason, New Jersey Institute of Technology and St. Francis). This season, the team has already swept NJIT and Juniata, and defeated Mason in four games.