The Penn State men's volleyball team (9-4) accomplished something this weekend that it hasn't been able to do all season: sweep a weekend series.

In four previous attempts, the Nittany Lions have been unsuccessful, losing to UC-San Diego on Feb. 2, Ball State on Jan. 23, Loyola on Jan. 16, and Lewis on Jan. 9. They have been unable to put in consistent effort for back-to-back matches.

"It shows that we're getting better," Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik said. "The second match [against UC-Irvine] was a good, quality win."

Penn State finally achieved the mark by defeating Springfield (Mass.) in four games (30-21, 31-33, 30-25, 30-26) on Friday night, then by showing up the next night to rally from a 2-0 deficit against No. 8 UC-Irvine (26-30, 28-30, 30-21, 30-26, 18-16).

"We actually got better as the match went along," Pavlik said. "We had no drop off in the match for the first time this season against a quality opponent."

The Lions' defense was the reason for the win over the Anteaters. The highest the Anteaters hit in the final three games was .212. By winning these two matches, Penn State took home the Volleyball Hall of Fame/Morgan Classic Championship for the seventh time in eight years.

"It wasn't all our defense," Pavlik said, referring to Irvine's 33 errors. "Our block was getting to everything in those final games. It was very good [Saturday]."

The Lions showed their first consistent output on offense in back-to-back matches this season. Outside hitters Kevin Wentzel and Matt Proper, and middle hitters Keith Kowal and Nate Meerstein all recorded double-digit kills in both matches. Meerstein also recorded a double double, his second of the season, with 11 kills and 10 blocks in the Irvine match.

Also, senior libero Ricky Mattei inched closer to the Penn State record for digs in a career by recording 21 digs this weekend. Mattei is now 40 digs away from the record of 820.

Kowal was named Most Valuable Player for the tournament and Proper and Mattei were named to the all-tournament team.