After defeating all opponents in less than four games this season, the Penn State men's volleyball has had its share of challenges recently.

In their last EIVA match, the Nittany Lions edged out Concordia (NY) in five games. Though the Lions downed the Ohio State Buckeyes in four games in their next match, Penn State had to score 46 points to squeak out the third game.

Last night, No. 8 Ball State (14-3, 8-0 MIVA) came into Happy Valley looking to surprise the No. 4 Lions (14-2, 7-0 EIVA Tait). Penn State, however, was barely able to hold off the upset and had to rally back from a two-games-to-one deficit to pull off the win in five games (24-30, 30-28, 25-30, 30-25, 15-8).

Heading into the match, the Lions had only defeated two of the top 10 teams in the USA Today/AVCA Coaches Poll — No. 7 Stanford and No. 9 Lewis. The last time Penn State was challenged by a top 10 team, it was Feb. 2 against Stanford — more than a month ago.

"We went out and kind of asked 'Are they going to show up?" and they hit us in the mouth," Lions head coach Mark Pavlik said.

Penn State junior opposite Zelkjo Koljesar said that Lions played tentatively and fell into the trap of playing at a tempo that the Cardinals were comfortable with.

"We came out tentative and it showed," he said. "Instead of taking control and being aggressive we had to come from behind."

In game one, Penn State fell behind 20-16 after a kill from Ball State junior outside hitter Kyle Weindel. Though the Lions tried to close in, they could not recover from the Cardinals' .552 hitting percentage.

Ten of junior outside hitter Carlos Guerra's 28 kills came in game two, lifting Penn State to a 30-28 victory.

The previous kills high for a Penn State player was 21, set by Guerra against Concordia and Ohio State. So by the time Guerra reached 28, the "Ks" posted were handwritten. Guerra now has 70 kills in the Lions' past three games.

Guerra said that it wasn't his kills that carried the team but emotion.

"When things start going badly, we responded well," Guerra said. "I think that's what keeps us in these games. As long as we continue believing we're better than those teams, we're going to beat them."

Pavlik said that when Penn State went up 21-14 after a Guerra kill, it was a turning point in the match.

"In that stretch in game four, we really elevated our play," he said. "That's when we realized that it was our turn to show them that we could control the match. I didn't see guys hanging their head. We were in a match and we responded well from that point on."