UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., April 22, 2004 -- The seventh-ranked and top seed Penn State men's volleyball team hosts eight seed Sacred Heart in the quarterfinals of the EIVA Tournament on Saturday, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. in Rec Hall. Admission to the match is free and livestats will be available on the web at www.GoPSUsports.com.

The Last Time Out
The Nittany Lions (20-6) outlasted IPFW in five games (24-30, 35-33, 30-21, 17-30, 15-11) on Friday night before downing EIVA-foe George Mason on Saturday in three games (30-26, 30-12, 30-21). Sophomore middle hitter Nate Meerstein (Pittsburgh, Pa.) led the Lions in kills both night, posting 17 kills against the Mastodons and chipping in 12 versus the Patriots. Sophomore setter Dan O¡¯Dell (Rochester, N.Y.) notched a combined 97 assists while leading the team in digs both nights, recording 11 and six, respectively. Meerstein led the squad in blocking, posting eight and three blocks, respectively.

Scouting Sacred Heart
The Pioneers are led by Doug Soviero and Michael Burns who average 4.18 and 3.42 kills per game, respectively. Michael Gardner and Alex Catani also produce more than 2.00 kills per game while C.J. Pinkney directs the Sacred Heart offense with 12.82 assists per game. Mike Maziarz leads the team defense with 2.73 digs per game and Gardner heads the blocking charts with 0.78 blocks per game. As a team, the Pioneers are hitting .271 with 14.85 kills per game, 1.34 service aces per game, 9.67 digs per game and 2.05 blocks per game.

The Series
Penn State leads the series with the Pioneers, 1-0. The lone meeting between the two schools was a 3-0 (30-24, 30-23, 30-23) Nittany Lion win on March 19, 2004, at Rec Hall.

The semifinals and final of the EIVA tournament will be held at Penn State on Thursday and Saturday, April 29 and May 1. The winner of the Rutgers-Newark/NYU quarterfinal will play the winner of the Juniata/Springfield quarterfinal in the first semifinal match at 5:00 p.m. The winner of the Penn State/Sacred Heart quarterfinal will play the winner of the Princeton/George Mason quarterfinal in the second semifinal match at 7:30 p.m.

The winners of each of the semifinal matches advance to the final, which will be held on Saturday, May 1 at 5:00 p.m. and will be televised live on CSTV.

The winner of the EIVA Tournament earns an automatic berth to the NCAA Semifinal on May 6 hosted by the University of Hawaii.