Every team would love to go undefeated in its conference. With two months left before the EIVA tournament, Penn State has a realistic chance to do just that.

For the second time in eight days, the Nittany Lions annihilated an undersized St. Francis (Pa.) team last night 3-1 (30-20, 30-23, 28-30, 30-15) to improve to 5-0 in the EIVA Tait Division.

"Overall I think we played at a pretty high level," Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik said. "We did what we probably should do against such a small team. We really out-physicalled [St. Francis]."

The match was basically a replay of last Tuesday's meeting at Rec Hall. The Red Flash were held to just four service aces again, and the Lions dominated with their size and strength.

"I was pretty pleased with how well the team came out," Pavlik said. "We jumped out to pretty easy first and second game leads, and we went out very determined in the fourth game."

The Lions once again beat the Red Flash in every statistical category. They out-hit and out-dug St. Francis, but the block was the real story. Penn State with finished with 20.5 blocks to St. Francis' 8.

"Our blocking was great," Pavlik said. "The servers did a good job recognizing we were scoring on the block, and did a good job letting St. Francis hit the ball. We had a real

good night blocking and serving balls."

The only blemish for Penn State came in game three. The Lions made some changes to get the younger players in, and they started out slow. They hit six balls out of bounds and were out of sink offensively. The sloppy play was caused more by the Lions' own errors than the play of St. Francis.

"In the third game we were a little less sharp," Pavlik said. "We made some changes and the guys made some unforced hitting errors. [St. Francis] didn't really make any adjustments that caused the sloppy play. We were just less sharp in that game."

Three-time EIVA Player of the Week Keith Kowal led the Lions with 12 kills, while St. Francis setter Chris Kennedy led the match with 22. Pavlik was particularly pleased with the play of sophomore outside hitter Matt Proper, who had eight kills, three digs, and was strong on the block.

"Matt Proper played awful well tonight," he said. "The guys handled their jobs pretty well tonight, especially Matt."

St. Francis freshman middle hitter Marc Honore warmed up but did not play. St. Francis men's volleyball coach Mike Rumbaugh told Pavlik he did not want to rush him back because the Red Flash have a big match with Springfield on Sunday. Rumbaugh would like to play Honore in that game.

The victory extended Penn State's win streak to four in row. The Red Flash added to their losing streak, which is now at three and dropped them to 0-7 in EIVA play.