Bradley Hunter walked off the court at the Sarni Tennis Center for the last time on Sunday afternoon, with a victory in hand.

Sunday was the ending for two players. Both Hunter and Berger arrived in the fall of 2003. Both have gone through three coaches in their time and now are the only seniors on the Penn State men's tennis team.

Hunter, a Nittany Lions senior co-captain, had just won his singles match in straight sets that day. But personal accolades were not as important to the Atlanta native when compared to the way the team ended its regular season, as Penn State beat Indiana, 4-3.

"It was a lot of fun, and awesome to help out the team, especially in the Indiana match to get the sixth win," Hunter said.

Berger, the other senior co-captain, was not as successful in the final two regular-season matches of his career, but his importance to the team has been imperative to the Lions' record this season.

"Ryan has done an amazing job over the four years and cared a lot and given a lot to this program, in terms of his performance on court and off court, and being just a great team guy," Penn State head coach Todd Doebler said.

This year's team has six conference wins, the most the Lions have had since joining the Big Ten in 1993. They ended the regular season with a 16-5 record, going 6-4 in Big Ten play.

"From a coaching standpoint, they were what you call 'low-maintenance guys.' They did what you needed them to do," former men's tennis head coach and current assistant athletic director Jan Bortner said. "When they came in as freshmen, you knew they were going to be leaders."

Hunter had two singles wins during the past weekend, defeating Ohio State's Drew Eberly, 7-6, 6-2, on Friday. Then in his final singles match at the Sarni Tennis Center, Hunter knocked off the Hoosiers' Mark Kendall.

"He's our emotional leader most days," Doebler said. "What makes Brad so special is he wasn't thinking about himself, what he was thinking about [was] the team."

Despite it being Penn State's most successful season in its brief Big Ten history, Hunter was missing out on some of the action.

When the spring schedule began in late January, he was sitting above the courts at the Penn State Indoor Tennis Center, battling mononucleosis for the first six weeks of the season.

"He's had such an up-and-down year [with the mononucleosis] that we were pleased that he was in the lineup [at the end of the season]," Nan Hunter, Bradley's mother said.

It may have seemed like a disappointment for some, but Hunter chooses to look at how the team responded without him.

"Obviously it was not the way I envisioned my last semester on the court," Hunter said. "But it showed me that when you have those setbacks you gotta have the self-confidence that Doebler instilled in us to get over them."

But with both Hunter and Berger in the lineup, the Lions continued their success, gaining the fifth seed in the Big Ten tournament, coupled with a big win over then-No. 21 Michigan.

Maybe more impressive than Berger's on-court accomplishments, is what he has done off the court, especially in the classroom. Berger was named an Academic All-American in both his sophomore and junior seasons.

Berger was an All-America selection at Forest Hills Central High School in Grand Rapids, Mich. Penn State's academics, athletics and campus attracted him to Happy Valley, but it was a Saturday night in September that really lured him, his father, Steve Berger, said.

That night was the Penn State-Nebraska football game in which the unranked Lions upset the No. 8 Cornhuskers, in front of a crowd of 110,753, a Beaver Stadium record.

"I said not to go just because of a football game," Steve Berger said.

Traveling from Michigan to Penn State for a football game is an easy walk compared to the drive or flight from Atlanta to University Park, for which there is no direct flight.

With his parents taking off work to travel all the way from Georgia, which Hunter said has been a norm, and being his last home match, the emotions were sure to be there this past weekend.

"I was excited about how we're going to end this year, I wasn't as choked up as I thought I'd be," Hunter said after his last home match.

Although a senior, Hunter isn't going to be done with Penn State in the middle of May. During the fall semester he plans to study abroad in Seville, Spain through Penn State for his last semester as a college student and then apply for jobs.

Berger will graduate and move to Austin, Texas, to work for Dell. Austin happens to be the hometown of sophomore Adam Slagter who says he plans to show Berger "the ropes down in Texas."

When Slagter shows Berger the ropes of Austin, it will be a bit of a payback.

"They've been really good leaders. Especially for me when I was younger last year when I first came in," Slagter said. "There's not two nicer guys on any team in the country. They'll take you under their wing on and off the court."

Four years and three coaches later, the Penn State men's tennis team is going to move on shortly -- but not just yet.

"Hopefully we can continue through the rest of this season and keep on leading the team to greater heights," Berger said.