The Penn State women's volleyball team was backed into a corner late Saturday night in the national championship match.

After winning the first two games, the Nittany Lions dropped the next two games to Stanford, and they trailed early in the fifth and decisive game.

The Lions could have folded and yielded to the charging Cardinal. Yet, Penn State showed the resiliency it had displayed all season during its run to the national title match.

No. 3-seeded Penn State (34-2) picked up its second national championship Saturday night in Sacramento, Calif., with a 3-2 victory (30-25, 30-26, 23-30, 19-30, 15-8) over No. 1-seeded Stanford in ARCO Arena. The Lions' other national title also came against Stanford in 1999.

"At this moment, I guess it hasn't really sunk in yet that we won," Penn State outside hitter Megan Hodge said. "It's just kind of a surreal feeling -- it's great. I'm on a high I guess."

The Lions jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and appeared headed to their 27th sweep of the season.

However, Stanford came out blistering in the third game, and the Cardinal dominated the Lions in the next two games to tie the match at two games apiece.

Stanford then started the fifth game with a 4-3 lead before the Lions went on a 7-0 run to blow open the final game. After Hodge tied the game, Penn State middle hitter Christa Harmotto put the Lions ahead for good with a kill.

"We didn't really want to look at the momentum. We just wanted to start from the beginning of Game 5," Penn State setter Alisha Glass said. "We came into this match wanting to win a national championship and in between those games we just said, 'Look, we're here, we got here, this is our goal and who says we're not going to come out and be strong.' "

Stanford coach John Dunning noticed a different Penn State team in Game 5 as opposed to the Lions that took the court in the two games prior.

"You know it is such a momentum-oriented game. We knocked them on their heels in Game 3 and they thought they could recover and didn't in Game 4," Stanford coach John Dunning said. "They just put their heart out on the floor. They were ready to start in Game 5."

Penn State out-hit Stanford .317 to .291 to help the Lions shatter the NCAA tournament record for team hitting percentage. Penn State hit .424 during the six-game tournament, besting Long Beach State's previous mark of .369 hitting in 1995.

Hodge led the Lions with 26 kills and fellow outside hitter Nicole Fawcett had 19 kills. Five players posted double digits in digs to help Penn State finish with a season-high 76 digs.

Penn State finished its season riding a 26-match victory streak. The Lion's last loss came on Sept. 15, when the Cardinal defeated the Lions in five games in the Yale Classic.

One reason for Penn State's reversal of the outcome was the development of middle hitter Arielle Wilson. The first meeting between the teams was the freshman's first start of the season.

Wilson, who had 12 kills on .500 hitting, was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Year and the University Park region's most outstanding player. Her contributions to the Lion's attack this time around did not go unnoticed by Stanford's All-American, Cynthia Barboza.

"One of the keys was Wilson. She has come a long ways," the Cardinal outside hitter said. "When they played us, that was her first time playing middle. She is a phenomenal player. That did a lot in terms of speeding up their offense and incorporating their back row attack."

The meeting between Penn State and Stanford was the third time the programs faced off for the national title. Stanford defeated Penn State for the 1997 national title, and Penn State beat Stanford in 1999 to capture its first championship.

Penn State's national title capped off a successful week for the program. On Wednesday, four Lions - Harmotto, Hodge, Fawcett and Glass - were named AVCA All-Americans. Then, on Thursday, Penn State coach Russ Rose was inducted into the AVCA Hall of Fame and was named national coach of the year.

While the Lions were honored by the individual recognitions, the team's main aspiration was always the same.

"The goal was to be the national champion," Rose said. "That's what we talked about and that's what we tried to do in putting this team together was to compete at the highest level," Rose said.