Penn State men’s volleyball will face Daemen in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the selection committee announced on Sunday. Despite having their first losing record in the Mark Pavlik era, the Nittany Lions clinched a spot in the tournament after sweeping Princeton in the EIVA championship on Saturday night.

Despite not winning the regular season title, Penn State will play for the third consecutive year in the NCAA Tournament after losing in the first round last year against UC Irvine. This season, the Nittany Lions went 11-15 and 8-4 in EIVA play. It was the first time since 2021 that Penn State did not have the home-court advantage in the EIVA tournament but managed to sweep all its opponents en route to another EIVA championship.

Penn State has five players on the all-EIVA teams. Ryan Merk and Will Kuhns were named to the EIVA first team. Owen Rose made the second team and Gaige Gabriel and Matthew Luoma were named honorable mentions.

Daemen went 15-12 this season and finished 4-4 in its conference. Both of these teams are unranked and will play in the first edition of the first round of the NCAA Tournament with the tournament being expanded to nine teams.

Penn State and Daemen will face off in the first round of the tournament at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 2 at Daemen’s campus in Amherst, New York. The match can be streamed on ESPN + and the winner will play No. 2 seed Hawaii.