Already down two-games-to-one and just two points from defeat, the Penn State women's volleyball team circled around head coach Russ Rose, and listened while blocking out 2,371 rowdy Texas fans.

"There's nothing magical," Rose said of his choice of words during the timeout with his team trailing 28-24 in game four.

"You tell them they need to play hard, they need to play better, and you need to have some fun. If they control some of those things, you see where it takes you."

Following the timeout, the No. 2 Nittany Lions won four consecutive points to tie the game at 28, fought off a match point two points later, and didn't look back.

In front of a hostile Longhorn crowd and a national television audience Friday night, the Lions rallied to defeat the No. 7 Longhorns, 3-2 (27-30, 28-30, 30-28, 36-34, 15-13) at the Texas Invitational in Austin.

"We started off pretty slow. We were tentative and we were playing scared," freshman outside hitter Megan Hodge said. "But after the second game, we came out, we had a game plan, we followed it and we brought more energy to the court."

Despite being ahead in several statistical categories through the first two games, the Lions (8-0) were behind on the scoreboard and in attack chances, perhaps the most important category of the night.

Texas (5-2) had 19 more offensive chances than Penn State through the first two games.

"We should have been killing them," sophomore outside hitter Nicole Fawcett said. "We were out-blocking them, out-digging them, out-hitting them. We had to keep our focus and not let them go on a points run."

The Lions kept the same pace in blocks, digs and kills during the final three games while closing the gap in attack chances between the two teams.

Freshman setter Alisha Glass helped that cause with a career-high 63 assists, and was successful directing the ball to Hodge and Fawcett, who had 27 and 21 kills, respectively.

"We're definitely getting more comfortable with what we're doing offensively," Glass said.

Glass, Hodge and Fawcett were named to the Texas Invitational All-Tournament team. Fawcett was named Most Valuable Player of the invitational, which also featured No. 4 Santa Clara and No. 15 Missouri.

Sophomore Roberta Holehouse played most of the Friday night's match at libero and pitched in a career-best 19 digs.

The Lions trailed for all of game one and most of game two. After winning game three and the pivotal fourth, they began the deciding fifth frame by losing four of the first five points. But the Lions rallied again to win five consecutive points, and led until the match was over.

When the comeback was nearly complete, there was time for players to reflect on what they were about to accomplish.

"It was really calming," Hodge said. "Everybody was all jacked up the last three games, but once it was 14-11, we all pretty much knew the game was over. We got a little anxious and we hit a couple balls out [to make the score 14-13], but we settled down and finished it off."

Said Fawcett: "It was definitely a good feeling to know that we came back from being behind and that we're capable of doing so most of the time."