The main strength of the No. 7 Penn State men's volleyball team has been its maturity when put in tough situations.

And there was no tougher situation for the Nittany Lions than Saturday night, when they had to come from behind to beat George Mason, 3-1 (27-30, 30-23, 30-24, 34-32), to claim their fifth consecutive EIVA tournament championship.

The victory gives Penn State (26-5) an automatic bid in the four-team NCAA Championship, which starts on Thursday at Long Beach State University in Long Beach, Calif. The other teams that won their conference tournaments and will meet the Lions out west are BYU, Lewis and Pepperdine, which received an at large bid.

In front of the largest crowd of the season, the Lions came out sputtering as numerous mistakes put them down early one game to none. After a talk with his team in between games, Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik told them to relax and just play their style of volleyball and the ship will right itself.

"Mature teams figure things like that out," Pavlik said. "The maturity of this team just let it go and refocus and I think that we did a pretty good job at that."

Figure things out the Lions did indeed as they came out in games two and three taking early leads and never looking back.

The Patriots didn't go quietly into the night, however, as they took a lead deep into the fourth game, going up 24-21. But the Lions, led by senior EIVA player of the year Carlos Guerra, tied the game at 25 before forging ahead. After an unbelievable dig by Penn State junior Keith Kowal, senior captain Zach Slenker finished off an almost perfect tournament with his 16th kill to end the two-hour match. Slenker was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

"I didn't really call for the ball in the fourth set because I saw Zach and Kowal and Norm [Keil] getting swings and killing the ball every time," Guerra said. "But when we were down after point 20, I said all right enough, give me the ball and we're going to win this game."

Guerra and Kowal were both named to the EIVA all tournament team after recording 20 kills and 15 kills and nine blocks, respectively. With those nine kills Kowal broke a single-season Penn State record by amassing 160 blocks on the year with at least one more game still to play.

One of the spots that Pavlik wasn't happy with was the opposite position. Senior Zeljko Koljesar, who has been a consistent force for the past four years for Penn State, couldn't find his game and was replaced by junior Dick Schneider midway through the third game to settle the team down.

"To be very honest I think [Schneider] did an OK job out there, but I still don't think that opposite position really served us well today," Pavlik said.

As Penn State stands just two wins away from its second National Championship, players and coaches alike realize that this team will need to use the maturity that got it to this point. If that happens, the Lions will be coming back to State College with some hardware and a new banner to hang in Rec Hall.