Sweetness.

The No. 3 Penn State women's volleyball team is heading to the round of 16 of the NCAA women's volleyball championship tournament after disposing of Maryland, 3-0 (34-32, 30-27, 31-29), in the second round at Rec Hall Saturday night.

Penn State will travel to Seattle later in the week for the regional semifinal match against No. 15 UCLA, with No. 5 Washington and No. 14 St. Mary's (Calif.) vying for the other spot in the regional final.

With two games extended into deuce scores, or past the usual 30 points needed to win because neither team led by two points at 30, it was a much closer match than any old, normal three-game sweep.

The Terrapins' amazing ride from eighth place in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) at the end of the regular season to sweeping through the ACC tournament to make it into the NCAA tournament came to a poignant end.

Maryland outblocked Penn State 15-6, with middle hitter Stephanie Smith tallying 10 blocks herself.

The Terps' blocking was so intimidating, it forced setter Sam Tortorello to spread out the offense and ended up helping six different Lions -- including Tortorello -- to double-digits in kills. Tortorello's 52 assists, teamed with 15 digs and 10 kills, translate into her first career triple-double.

Freshman middle hitter Melissa Walbridge proved best at varying her shots around the Maryland block, leading Penn State in kills with 15 on 22 attempts -- an unthinkable .636 hitting percentage.

"She even had a back set," Penn State coach Russ Rose said about Walbridge's backward set to Syndie Nadeau in the third game. "You know the freshmen are crazy when they're doing stuff like that."

The Lions first beat American University 3-0, (30-18, 30-18, 35-33) on Friday night in the first round of the tournament to earn the right to play Maryland.

Penn State overpowered the Eagles, who kept games one and two close early, and proved feisty enough to force a deuce-game in game three before succumbing to the Lions.

All weekend, rowdy crowds badgered the visiting teams, chanting "Barry! Barry!" when American coach Barry Goldberg was issued a yellow card for arguing a questionable call.

The cards were flying against Maryland, too.

In game one, Penn State led 22-18 when the Maryland bench jumped into an uproar over an attack error called against Jennifer Dewalt. A first yellow card was assessed to Maryland coach Janice Kruger, but the Terps continued to question the officiating, and a red card was then given to a Maryland assistant coach. This gave Penn State the ball and a point, shifting momentum in game one to the Lions.

Saturday night's game was the last in Rec Hall for the Lions' three graduating seniors: Ashley Pederson, Nadeau and Tabitha Eshelman. Before going off into the locker room, the three gave a wave to the crowd, smiling.

"It's hard to know that you're not going to be playing at home anymore," Pederson said. "But that just makes the end of the season that much more exciting, and each of these other matches more important. We want to keep on playing until the end."

The Lions won their sweet-16 matchup in last year's NCAA tournament before falling to Florida in the regional final.