STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik knows what it's like to win a national championship in front of the home crowd. He was the manager for Penn State in 1982, when the Nittany Lions defeated USC for the title in Rec Hall.
Now that he's the Nittany Lions coach, Pavlik hopes his team will earn that feeling for themselves.
Selected last June as the host for the NCAA championships, Penn State (25-3) reached the national semifinals by beating Rutgers-Newark in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association championship. Penn State now faces Hawaii Thursday night in the semifinals.
The first semifinal pits top seed Pepperdine against Ball State.
''I've been thinking about it for a while,'' Penn State setter Jose Quinones said. ''Now that it's here, the whole thing has taken over my thoughts.''
Quinones, a fifth-year senior widely regarded as one of the nation's top setters, leads the way for the Nittany Lions. But Penn State also will need strong performances from Carlos Guerra, Zeljko Koljesar and Zach Slenker, who lead the team in kills.
''Obviously with a fifth-year setter coming back, we knew we were going to be in good shape,'' Pavlik said. ''We've made it to the party, now we just want to play with passion and let everything out there.''
Although the crowd will likely favor the Nittany Lions, as a No. 3 seed Penn State will be an underdog on its own floor.
No. 2 seed Hawaii (22-8) has beaten Penn State twice this year, including a win in State College. The Warriors lost to Pepperdine in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation final, but earned the only at-large to the tournament.
''It wasn't easy getting to this point,'' Hawaii coach Mike Wilton said. ''We've played Penn State three times already this season, and we know how tough it's going to be.''
Ball State (23-7) is in the semifinals for the first time since 1997 after beating Loyola-Chicago for the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association title.
''We're not going to have it easy,'' Ball State coach Joel Walton told The Star Press of Muncie, Ind. ''Pepperdine is a great team. We'll give our guys the best scouting report we can, and then it will get down to them fighting like heck to win that match.''
Pepperdine has won five of the six meetings between the schools, winning at Pepperdine in 1989, 1993 and 1999, the last time the teams met. Ball State's only victory came on a neutral court in 1997.
''I think everybody on our team is going there to win,'' sophomore setter Keith Schunzel said Tuesday before the team left for State College, Pa. ''We're capable of winning, and we know it.''
Pepperdine (28-4), which earned the top seed and got its 16th consecutive win by beating Hawaii for the Mountain Pacific championship, will be going for its second title in Happy Valley. The Waves last NCAA championship came in 1986, the last time the finals were played in State College.
This year, Pepperdine has twice as many services aces (214) as its opponents (97) and almost as good a record with blocks (422.5 to 221). The Waves last loss came Feb. 21 at Pacific.
''We've relied on consistency,'' Pepperdine coach Marv Dunphy said. ''All along, the most important thing has been your next hit, your next match. This has been the most composed of any collegiate group I've worked with.''
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