The drought has ended. Following a season and a half of ineptitude in the Big Ten, the Penn State men's tennis team (8-10 1-5) finally came away with a win and they did it in dramatic fashion.

It came down to the final point of the final match of the weekend as junior Matt Frakes took Michigan State's Goran Topalo to a third and final set. The match was pushed to match-point six times before Frakes finished Topalo off to give Penn State the 5-2 win.

"It was a battle," Frakes said. "We both were pretty spent physically but it's nice to taste victory."

Senior captain Jamie Gresh said the contest would have made even the coolest of characters sweat.

"It's a gut wrenching experience," Gresh said.

"But there is no sweeter feeling than what he (Frakes) was going through and what we went through."

The Nittany Lions started the weekend off strong on Saturday and posed a threat to No. 30 Michigan before falling 5-2.

Penn State won the doubles point and saw No. 106 Gresh upset the No. 39 ranked player in the nation, Henry Beam, 7-6 6-3.

"We played at a high level yesterday," Gresh said. "So if we duplicated that, we knew the results were going to come."

Fifteen straight Big Ten loses could make anyone want to pack it in as the Lions continually dropped matches they felt they could win.

Assistant coach Bill Potoczny said the team decided that the loses were becoming intolerable.

"Last week and yesterday the guys were so disgusted and frustrated, we all felt it was unacceptable," he said.

"It's frustrating when you feel you are as good as these teams and don't come away with the wins."

For the second straight match Penn State won the doubles point against the Spartans and the team believes that was instrumental in the victory

The Lions also felt that playing outdoors at the Sarni Tennis Center for the first time all season factored into their success.

Whatever the cause, Frakes said he is just ecstatic with the win.

"This is great," Frakes said. "It's great to win, especially for us veterans."

"I think this definitely does a lot for our confidence, Michigan State is a great team so hopefully we can keep rolling."

The team will only have a short time to celebrate as they have three matches coming up this week starting with Robert Morris on Wednesday.

After that its back to the Big Ten with both Indiana and No. 52 Purdue coming to town this weekend.