Facing their toughest non-conference opponent during the spring season, the No. 44 Penn State men's te nnis team was defeated yesterday by No. 60 Virginia Tech, 4-3, at the Penn State Indoor Tennis Center.

Yesterday's loss -- only the Lions second of the spring season -- was the first home loss for Penn State since an April 9, 2006 loss against Ohio State.

What has been a problem as of late for the Lions struck again -- doubles. Penn State (8-2, 1-1 Big Ten) failed to win a single doubles match and the subsequent doubles point went to the Hokies (8-3, 1-1 Atlantic Coast Conference).

"Virginia Tech deserves a lot of credit. They came in and competed very hard and they're a much better team than their national ranking shows," Penn State head coach Todd Doebler said.

The No. 19 doubles duo of junior Michael James and sophomore Adam Slagter fell to the No. 26 Hokies pair of Nicolas Delgado and Pedro Graber, 9-8.

The match was sealed when senior Ryan Berger lost a thrilling three-set match to Delgado at No. 2 singles.

Berger took the first set, 7-6, and then the match became heated. Both players contested line calls that eventually required an official on each side of the court. After one particular call, Delgado gave a sarcastic thumbs-up to the official and clapped his hand against his racket. Delgado then fought back to win the next two sets, 7-5, 7-5, and the overall match for the Hokies.

James was the lone bright spot in the Penn State lineup yesterday. Playing at the No. 1 singles spot, he knocked off Virginia Tech's Arvid Puranen, the No. 39 singles player in the country.

Showing passion and intensity throughout the match, James won in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4.

"He's a really good player. He's beaten a lot of good players -- it gives me confidence. Hopefully I can continue that and help the team win," James said of his opponent.

James's win pulled Penn State within one point of the Hokies, 2-1, in the overall match.

However, Virginia Tech won the next two singles matches after Albert Larregola beat Slagter and then Berger's match.

After Virginia Tech had already secured the match, both junior James Dwyer and freshman Guillaume St-Maurice won their matches in three set tiebreakers.

This was the third time in three years that Penn State and Virginia Tech have played to a 4-3 score. The past two years Penn State was the winner.

"The tougher the schedule, the better the guys are going to get," Doebler said. "I think they learned a lot from this and the big thing is they learn that we need to keep doing what we're doing and improve on the little things every day."