They travel to tournaments along the East Coast all season long. Every practice, they look to perfect their serves and add spunk to their spikes. And less than two weeks ago, they proved themselves in a national collegiate field.

They are the men of the Penn State club volleyball team, and they recently wrapped up a 28-10 season with a final four berth in the gold division of the 2003 NIRSA Collegiate Volleyball Sport Club National Championships, held April 10-12 in Columbus, Ohio.

The championship is only part of the story, however, as the men have had success throughout the season at many of their regular-season tournaments.

In their first tournament of the spring season, they traveled to Virginia Tech for the Hokie Classic, where they claimed second place. They won both of their Atlantic South Conference tournaments, first at home and then at the U.S. Naval Academy, where they shared the title with the University of Maryland. At the East Coast Clash, held in February at James Madison University, they added another tournament championship to their tally, going 5-0 in match play for the weekend against an impressive field of the East's top teams.

Parts of the season were disappointing for the team, including a loss in the first round of the gold division playoffs to give the team a 2-2 record at the Hoosier-Illini Classic midway through the season. However, this setback only proved to help the team realize its capabilities and deliver when it mattered.

"We had all the skills the whole year, we just didn't have the right attitude," captain Jeff Bozic said. "When we were out at nationals, we realized the attitude we had to have to be successful and it just worked."

The men certainly did get it to work at nationals, as they fought their way up from a No. 23 pre-tournament seed into the final four of the top playoff bracket. They gathered momentum as the tournament progressed, and after qualifying for the gold division, which consisted of the top 20 of the 60 teams at the tournament, the men never looked back, subsequently earning sweet 16, elite eight, and final four berths. The University of California-Davis finally stopped the men in the semifinal round.

The key victory in the playoffs came in the sweet 16 round, in which Penn State, which was then the No. 16 seed for the gold division, upset the University of Northern Illinois, the No. 1 seed, to stay alive for the next round.

"We went in with the mindset of [having] nothing to lose," Bozic said. "We just put everything out on the court."

The success of the men is even more impressive considering that out of the 60 teams in the Div. I club championships, only three of these universities have established varsity squads. In most cases, Penn State squared off against the best volleyball players each school had to offer.

"The teams we played were varsity-level teams, which is why this is so cool for us," Bozic said. "We competed at a level which is almost equal to our varsity team." The similarities to the varsity team run even deeper than the level of competition. The club team features two ex-varsity players on its roster, and the men are coached by Scott Horning, a former Penn State student and the previous manager of the varsity men's volleyball team.

"I try to run it like the varsity program as much as I can because I worked there for several years," Horning said.

The year-long program includes fall conditioning, Sunday sessions composed entirely of drills, practices held five to six times a week prior to nationals, and a review of each tournament's game film.

There's a different kind of volleyball team in town. But there are no differences in its commitment to success.