UC Irvine's Anteaters blended their power game with great defense to beat IPFW 3-1 today and win their first volleyball national championship.

Matt Webber was selected the tournament MVP, but don't try telling him he's any more valuable than any of the other Anteaters.

"MVP to me means, I don't know, it doesn't mean much," the 6-foot-7 senior said. "WE did it. WE played as a team. For one guy to stand out doesn't make much sense. We're a bunch of nobodies if we don't play together."

The second-seeded Anteaters (29-5) won by scores of 30-20, 24-30, 30-23 and 30-28, extending their school record for wins in a season. IPFW — an acronym representing the 12,000-student school's relationships with Indiana and Purdue universities and its hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind. — finished at 23-8.

Two years after a 9-20 season, the Anteaters — led by seniors Webber, Jayson Jablonsky, David Smith and Brian Thornton — are on top.

"People have asked me about how the five-year plan was done," said John Speraw, 99-59 in five years as head coach. "It was done when we recruited these four guys."

Even though IPFW was playing in its sixth final four and Irvine its second in a row, neither school had ever played in a men's volleyball title game before. This was the closest the Mastodons had come to a national crown of any kind. The Anteaters had won three water polo championships, the last coming in 1989.

Irvine started its season by playing exhibitions at Ohio State, partly to test themselves against the Buckeyes but mostly to scout out where the national championship would be held. Speraw, who had won titles as a UCLA player in 1993 and 1995, said the goal was to finish the season at St. John Arena and win it all.

Second-team All-Americans Webber and Jablonsky had 22 and 18 kills, respectively. Taylor Wilson had eight digs, first-team All-American Smith had four blocks and second-teamer Thornton had 59 assists.

"It's all kind of surreal now," Thornton said after the victory.