Now the real pressure begins.

After cruising through its EIVA schedule with a 13-1 record, the No. 7 Penn State men's volleyball team (18-6) begins its quest for a national championship tomorrow in the EIVA tournament quarterfinals. The Nittany Lions will face Sweeney Division champions Sacred Heart (15-7) at 7 p.m. at Rec Hall.

The pressure will be on Penn State because the winner of the EIVA tournament gets an automatic berth to May's Final Four in Hawaii. Even though there is one at-large bid, it usually goes to a western team, most likely the loser of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Conference tournament.

"Is there pressure, I would say yes and no," Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik said. "Nobody besides us in the EIVA has been ranked high consistently, so everyone but us is coming into the tournament with a nothing-to-lose attitude. But we come in with the external pressure of the fans and the internal pressure that we have put in ourselves to win. So it's more pressure on us than anyone else."

The Lions are easily the class of the conference with every player in their starting lineup earning All-EIVA team honors and everyone but superfrosh Alex Gutor getting a spot on the All-EIVA first team. Junior middle hitter Keith Kowal and sophomore middle hitter Nate Meerstein led the voting.

"[The committee] made some pretty good selections this year," Pavlik said. "You have to be a pretty special player to be named to the All-EIVA team if your team is losing, and they did a good job at rewarding those players."

The players to whom Pavlik referred are Felix Campos and Matt Steinfurth of George Mason (6-16), and Brandon Mueller and Eduardo Stawinski of Springfield (7-15). All four were named to the second team All-EIVA.

Also announced were the player of the year award and newcomer of the year. Both were awarded to Nittany Lions, with Kowal and Gutor, respectively, taking home the honors.

"Alex's selection was easier because there were only two players outside of Penn State nominated for the award and the stats spoke for themselves," he said, referring to the fact that there were only four freshmen that qualified for voting and one of them was Gutor's back-up, Aaron Smith. "With Keith it was nice to see that people outside of our gym have recognized the level that he has reached and you would be hard pressed to find a player better than him. His stats easily separated him from everyone else."

Those stats would include a nation-leading .578 hitting percentage, which is 64 points higher than second place. Kowal also ranks seventh in the nation with 1.36 blocks per game.

With a win tomorrow night, the Lions would play in the semi-final on Thursday at Rec Hall. They would play the winner of the Princeton-George Mason quarterfinal.

Also this week Meerstein was named EIVA player of the week. It is the sixth EIVA player of the week honor for Penn State and the first for Meerstein. His performances against IPFW (17 kills, eight blocks) and George Mason (12 kills, three blocks) were key in the Lions' two victories last weekend.