The 49ers (28-6) advance to tomorrow's nationally televised championship match. The Nittany Lions end their season 23-7.

The scouting report on the 49ers was to watch out for their jump serves and the offensive trifecta of opposite hitter Scott Touzinsky, middle blocker David Lee and left-side hitter Jeff Wootton.

That opened the way for Budinger, a 6-foot-8 sophomore middle blocker. Budinger hammered 11 kills in 15 swings, hitting .667, and had his handprints on seven of the 49ers' 11.5 blocks.

"He's a great player," Touzinsky said. "Duncan Budinger has worked his butt off every single day in the gym. Now he's playing harder than anybody on the court. He's amazing, a great blocker. Don't overlook Duncan Budinger."

Long Beach coach Alan Knipe said: "With Duncan, you'll never see a fire or overdone motion. He's very methodical in his training. He takes a lot of pride in doing things well. He's overshadowed by Scott (Touzinsky) and Dave (Lee) so much that nobody respects him. But I love him. In my opinion, he's one of the best middle blockers in the country."

Because Budinger never complains, few notice he has played nine matches with a torn ligament in his left thumb. Last night, the tape on his thumb began to unravel because of his frequent blocks.

"I've kind of lost a little motion (in the thumb)," Budinger said. "It's getting better. Sometimes when the ball ricochets off of it, it hurts a little bit, but not too bad."

The Nittany Lions have earned a reputation as one of the toughest-serving teams in the East. But last night, Wootton, outside hitter Nathan Hagstrom and libero Paul Munoz were able to take the Nittany Lions' best shots and parlay them into easy passes to setter Tyler Hildebrand. After that, HIldebrand had his choice of high sets to Touzinsky on the right or quick ones to Lee and Budinger.

"You've got to look at Tyler Hildebrand," Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said. "Tyler just gets his team so many good swings. ... I think that was the big difference in the (match) tonight. Tyler gave his team great swings."

In turn, the Nittany Lions, while handling the 49ers' jump serves, had difficulty against jump floaters placed to the shoulders of the court. Even Ricky Mattei, one of the country's best liberos, could not consistently pass to setter Dan O'Dell near the net. The slow relays from passer to setter to hitter allowed the 49ers to plant the block on the outside.

"They did a great job serving," Mattei said. "For some reason, I didn't have my best match tonight. The ball felt weird coming out of my arms."

The Nittany Lions also gave away 22 points on attack errors and 15 on service mistakes.