There could be many excuses.

Poor officiating, the ridiculous increase in altitude and three straight weeks on the road are a few possibilities, but the No. 8 Penn State Women's Volleyball team (8-1) chose none of those after splitting games this weekend at the BYU Mizuno Classic.

In the first game of the weekend the Nittany Lions breezed past the Rice Owls 3-0 (30-27, 30-26, 30-14), but were dismantled in a tough five-game match against tournament hosts BYU 3-2 (21-30, 30-27, 30-23, 26-30, 15-13) on Saturday night.

In what was the toughest match thus far on the young season, the Nittany Lions were pushed to the limit and then some in front of more than 1,000 spectators at Smith Fieldhouse in Provo, Utah.

Despite being led by all-tournament team members Cara Smith and Sam Tortorello, who finished with 22 kills and 61 assists respectively, the lack of fire from the younger players dug Penn State in too deep of a hole to get out of.

"We don't have a whole group who are passionate about playing volleyball," Penn State head coach Russ Rose said after the game. "We had every opportunity to win, but we made some bad decisions."

After going down two games to one, Penn State pulled itself together, going up 28-18 at one point, but that's where things got sticky. BYU (7-3) scored the next six points before Penn State's Ashley Pederson ended the game with a kill. The end of the match seemed to reinvigorate the Cougars heading into the all-important fifth and final game.

"Being up big and then letting them start that comeback gave them momentum," sophomore Kaleena Walters said. "We let them know that they can compete with us."

BYU carried that momentum well into the final game taking a 9-3 advantage, which did all but cook Penn State's goose.

Since this year's team is a hodge-podge of experience and youth, the girls in charge will now need to help get the younger players past this loss and chalk it up to inexperience, especially since Big Ten play is just a few short weeks away.

"Obviously we were all disappointed, but it wasn't a season-shattering loss," senior Emily Gerega said. "It was just one match."

On Friday night some fresh faces stepped up in the victory over Rice (6-5) as Erin Iceman led Penn State with 14 kills to go along with Pederson's 12 and Smith's 10. Walters stepped up defensively finishing with a match-high 12 digs, while the double threat Tortorello finished with 42 assists and 11 digs.

Rose was happier with his team in the loss than in the win against Rice and wasn't too worried about dropping in the rankings.

"We played better losing to BYU than we did in beating Rice," Rose said. "And being nationally ranked isn't as important as getting better."

So with a slash finally in the loss column and strengths and weaknesses concretely apparent the Lions will just have to move on and get better as a team.

"We have to look to the future," Gerega said. "We have to look to next weekend."