Five matches in three days, with easily the toughest competition of the season to date coming on the road sounds like a tall order for any team.

The No. 61 Penn State men's tennis team (5-0) just kept rolling through it though, keeping its perfect record to start the season.

In what could have been an easy match to stumble in, the Nittany Lions showed up big against No. 74 Cornell, defeating the Big Red on their home courts, 6-1 on Saturday.

Then the Lions returned home to down Lafayette last night by a score of 7-0, winning every match in straight sets.

The keys for the Lions were their depth and strong doubles play, as they captured the doubles point in both contests.

"Cornell as always, has been a real good doubles team. After we won the doubles point, we kind of shocked them and they weren't able to recover," senior co-captain Mark Barry said.

Barry teamed with freshman Adam Slagter at No. 1 singles to defeat Josh Raff and Nick Brunner, one of the premiere doubles teams in the East, by a score of 8-4. With juniors Ryan Berger and Brad Hunter locking up the doubles point 9-8 in a tiebreaker at the No. 3 spot, the Lions were off and running.

"No. 1 doubles could've played with any team in the country," Penn State head coach Bill Potoczny said. "All three teams played real hard and that's all you can ask for as a coach -- our guys were just fighting, it could've easily gone Cornell's way."

With the doubles point under their belts, the Lions let their outstanding singles play take over, winning five of the six matches.

Berger was able to clinch the match for the Lions once again by getting the best of Brunner, this time at the No 3 singles spot. Berger's 6-3, 6-4 victory gave the Lions their first road win of the season, and first against a ranked opponent.

Even with Hunter not playing in the singles lineup, Penn State's depth took over. Freshmen Slagter and Brendan Lynch contributed two big wins at the Nos. 5 and 6 singles spots, respectively.

"Brendan did an incredible job, he didn't give his guy any chance [Saturday]," Potoczny said of the freshman's 6-2, 6-2 win against Cornell. "He's making a name for himself as a freshman."

Lynch's success carried over to last night's match against Lafayette when the he got a chance to play at the No. 3 singles spot because of lineup changes by Potoczny. Lynch was able to defeat his opponent 6-1, 6-0 at a higher level of competition than he would be used to at the No. 6 spot.

Some of the younger players moved up in the lineup because Potoczny gave Barry the night off, and senior co-captain Malcolm Scatliffe and Berger a break from singles.

"I wanted to get some more competitive matches, to get them a little higher in the lineup," Potoczny said. "Everybody, hopefully, feels like they're being rewarded for working hard on this team."

With the sweep of Lafayette, the Lions capped off their rough five-match stretch, and their first real test of the season with a win. However, next week they must go back on the road to start Big Ten play against Purdue and conference powerhouse Illinois.

"For us, what's on our minds first is Purdue, on their home court," Scatliffe said. "We have the same mind set as Cornell -- the doubles point is key for us."