The men's volleyball team will attempt to rebound from its first loss of the season when it travels to Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne for the Fort Wayne National Bank Pepsi Invitational this weekend.

The No. 8 Lions (5-1) will face host IPFW (3-3) in the semifinals tonight. The winner of that match will then play the winner of the Ohio State-Southern Cal match for the championship tomorrow night.

Penn State edged IPFW, 17-16, 12-15, 15-13, 15-13, during round-robin play at the Mizuno/Nittany Lion Invitational last weekend. Guillo Silva, an all-tournament selection, had a team-high 28 kills and contributed 12 digs in the win. Penn State and IPFW finished second and third, respectively, in the tournament.

The Volleydons are led by a quartet of juniors -- Matt Lacis, Tom Juhnke, Tony Luhning and Fred Malcolm, who was also an all-tournament selection last weekend.

"We have got to play better than we did (last weekend against IPFW)," Coach Tom Peterson said. "I understand they get a real good crowd, and if we play the same, I think that crowd will influence them to play better."

"We've got to go in and play really hard and just beat them again even though we're playing over there," Silva said.

If the Lions are to improve on last week's effort, they will need to expand their offense more to include the middle blockers. Outside hitters Silva, Charlie Bertran and Jorge Perez carried too much of the offensive load last weekend, said setter Jim Schall, who averaged 71 assists and 6.2 digs per match last weekend.

"We need to get our middle some more sets and (get) more offense out of our middle," Peterson said. "That doesn't mean the guys are bad doing that. We just need to set middle more, I think."

Should the Lions defeat IPFW, they would most likely face No. 7 USC, which will "definitely destroy Ohio State," Silva said.

The Trojans (3-2) defeated the Lions twice last season on their way to a 28-11 record. But graduation and injuries have left first-year USC coach Jim McLaughlin with only two returning starters -- middle blocker Bryan Ivie and setter Dan Greenbaum.

"They're kind of young but everybody is kind of young . . . in certain positions," Peterson said. "I think that they're a very good team."

"I think the team to beat is the California team, as usual," Silva said. "If we go in and we have a good match, I think some people will notice back in California that we have a good team over here."

The Lions will have to avoid the ups-and-downs they experienced on the court last weekend if they want to defeat the talented Trojans.

"I think we need to be consistent," Jim Schall said. "A lot of times in the past we would get up on a team and then slack off and let them back in the game.

"I think if we're able to run the middle . . . and get everybody involved in the offense . . . we'll be able to win this weekend."

Peterson looks at this weekend as the next step in Penn State's maturing process.

"We'll play with anybody," Peterson said. "We have that opportunity to beat most any team if we decide that we can learn from what we did this past weekend and not just do the same things.

"I'm a little concerned right now that we're not quite . . . getting to the point where we're adjusting as much as we could. We've got a great opportunity get a lot better."