With all the points to be won in a team's collegiate tennis match, it is a rare occurrence for the entire match to come down to one game -- or even less likely, a few points.

For junior Ryan Berger of the No. 57 Penn State men's tennis team, it did yesterday against the No. 49 Hokies of Virginia Tech.

The No. 3 singles player for the Nittany Lions (11-1, 1-1), won a third-set tiebreaker against Albert Larregola, to clinch Penn State's 4-3 road victory.

"That's one of the things you wonder about, when you're winning like that," Penn State coach Bill Potoczny said of the Lions' recent streak of 7-0 victories. "You never see how your team's going to respond if you're put in that situation."

The Lions would be tested -- with the overall match tied at two points apiece, three singles matches had come down to third sets.

Although sophomore Michael James was able to force a third set, winning the second in a tiebreaker, he was defeated by Nicolas Delgado, 6-0, 6-7, 6-2. The loss meant that both Berger and senior captain Mark Barry would have to win their matches.

Once Barry earned a huge 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 win against nationally ranked Arvid Puranen, it all came down to Berger's match.

"For a while there, it's two-all and those three set matches were going on -- then Mark got that break and finished off Puranen," Potoczny said. "You just never quite know, and you're holding your breath till that one was over."

Berger admitted to getting a little tight when he saw that James had lost his match, but both he and Barry knew that he had been in this situation before.

In a win against Brown during Berger's freshman year, the match was tied up at three points and Berger came through for the Lions.

"It helped that I had a little experience with that freshman year, and I had that in mind," Berger said. "What it came down to was I had the guys behind me and Barry playing his match alongside me."

With Larregola serving for the match at 5-4, Berger earned a break with a strong return game. From there, each player held grinding service games to force the tiebreaker, Berger said.

In the tiebreaker Berger focused on working his opponent's backhand and said he even got a little lucky with a few drop shot volleys.

"I knew I had to be aggressive toward his backhand, so I made him hit like 100 backhands until he missed a few," Berger said.

The exciting 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (7-2) victory was set up by the Lions' ability to once again win the doubles point.

Penn State's No. 1 and No. 3 pairs each used solid service games to give the Lions a 1-0 lead heading into singles play. With the Hokies coming out strong in singles, the match could have been a totally different story if not for winning the doubles point, Potoczny said.

The hard-fought win, following a 7-0 shutout of Duquesne on Friday at home, gives the Lions a five-game winning streak going into the heart of their Big Ten season.

"It was a great learning experience -- I think we needed this, to be tested and to come out on top," Berger said. "It should be a great confidence boost heading into Big Tens -- it worked out perfectly for us."