For Mark Pavlik, the weekend was flawless. Well, almost anyway.

Aside from a one-game hiccup, the Penn State men's volleyball coach was pleased with his team's play this weekend, as the Nittany Lions dismissed two EIVA foes. The No. 9 Lions defeated Rutgers-Newark, 3-1 (30-15, 30-23, 28-30, 30-17), on Friday and No. 14 George Mason, 3-0 (30-18, 30-24, 30-21), on Saturday.

"The starters played as well as you'd want them to play," Pavlik said. "I have no complaints."

Pavlik's displeasure came in Game 3 of Friday night's match, when the second-team players were subbed in for the regular starters.

"I was just disappointed with the effort from the guys off the bench," he said. "The guys coming off the bench didn't give us an upgrade. That was the most disappointing part. The challenge that these guys have in a match like this is to not disengage from it. They've gotta stay engaged, they've gotta stay at a high level."

In Game 3 on Friday, the Lions (9-4, 6-0 EIVA) only hit .233 -- their lowest hitting percentage for any game all weekend.

"The good thing is that the guys who we need to be doing the good things -- the [Matt] Propers, the [Nate] Meersteins -- they are," Pavlik said. "And I find myself talking about one game that we lose because the rest of the guys come out flat. It's almost a disservice to the game the other guys had."

On Friday, senior co-captain Proper led the effort with 14 kills, hitting at a .500 clip.

Freshmen Max Holt and Matt Anderson continued their solid play -- Holt notched eight kills, hitting .583, and Anderson dug six balls.

On the match, Penn State hit .317.

The Lions would not slip up on Saturday night and made a bold statement to the rest of the EIVA: Penn State is the team to beat.

George Mason came in as the second-ranked EIVA team, with a 12-2 record. The Patriots were dropped in three games and managed to hit only .200, while Penn State hit .394.

"We wanted to send [George] Mason a message," senior setter Dan O'Dell said. "They came in here thinking, 'We're as good as Penn State this year' and all that stuff. But at the same time, we wanted to kill them. We didn't want to let down. We wanted to send them a message that they can't compete with us."

Proper continued his steady play, leading with 14 kills at a .571 percentage even as Penn State began to pull away from the Patriots as each game wore on.

"We've been working to keep fighting no matter how big the lead," Proper said. "We just gotta play our game."