Penn State's first 13 trips to the Outrigger Invitational were fruitless, but that changed last year and continued over the weekend.

For the second straight year, the Penn State men's volleyball team won the Outrigger Invitational in Honolulu.

Ranked No. 1 to open the season, Penn State (3-0) beat No. 7 USC, No. 10 Ohio State and No. 13 Hawaii on consecutive nights to capture the championship.

"I think we're going to stack up pretty well against those kind of physical teams," Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said. "I'm pretty pleased, but we have a lot of work in front of us."

Penn State opened its national title defense by dropping the first game to USC, 27-30. The Nittany Lions responded by winning the next two games, 30-23 and 30-19. USC took the fourth before Penn State won the deciding fifth set 15-12.

Junior outside hitter Will Price led the way with 22 kills while senior opposite Ryan Sweitzer chipped in 18.

"Will had an outstanding first two nights. [Saturday] night Hawaii did everything they could to slow him and Sweitzer down," Pavlik said. "They did a good job but the middles and Joe [Sunder] did a good job to carry us the rest of the way."

The Lions closed the tournament by beating Hawaii in four games (30-22, 21-30, 30-22, 30-23).

Penn State hit a gaudy .692 in the first game before service and passing errors plagued the second game for the Lions.

"I don't think we were real focused back there in Game 2. If you don't perform and execute at the level you really need to, these teams make you pay for it," Pavlik said. "Hawaii made us pay for it."

Penn State used the break before the third game to refocus and hit over .400 in the last two games.

Senior middle hitter Max Holt led Penn State with 11 kills on 12 attempts for a near-perfect .917 hitting percentage.

Against USC, Holt had seven service aces, passing former player Zeljko Koljesar for first on Penn State's all-time ace list.

Koljesar had 130 aces from 2000-2003 while Holt has 139. For his efforts, he was named to the Outrigger All-Tournament Team.

Joining Holt on the all-tournament team were junior middle hitter Max Lipsitz, redshirt freshman setter Edgardo Goas and sophomore libero Dennis Del Valle.

Lipsitz tallied 32 kills in three matches.

Goas had 149 assists while Del Valle had 31 digs for the tournament.