Every once and a while in a dynamic duo, the "sidekick" has to step up and take control of a situation. Sometimes Robin had to help Batman when he was in trouble.

So it was no different for the Penn State men's volleyball's duo of junior middle hitter Keith Kowal and sophomore middle hitter Nate Meerstein on Friday night against IPFW.

IPFW totally shut down Kowal, holding him to a .176 hitting percentage, which is well below his season average of .591. Its game plan was working as it took game one 30-24 and seemed in control of the match.

"They came in with the game plan of they wanted to take Keith out of the game," Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik said. "They did a real good job of that. The probably looked at the Ohio State tape on how to take away that little push that we do."

But once again an opponent forgot about Penn State's other middle hitter and Meerstein made them pay. He finished the game with 17 kills and a .538 hitting percentage improving on his percentage of .514, which ranks him second in the nation. He also recorded a perfect game in game two going 5-for-5 and recording three blocks in the process.

"The guy sitting to my left [Meerstein] was just a stud [Friday]," Pavlik said. "Meers kept us in the match tonight with his hitting, his blocking, he served the ball well and everyone groveled a bit."

Meerstein's defense after game one was key in the Lions victory. Meerstein held the Mastodons outside hitter Josh Collins seven kills after the freshman had recorded eight in game one. Meerstein talks about the how the Lions changed the block after game one.

"We were just making better reads," he said. "We were flowing to the outside, because we had all that extra time to get over there and get our arms up and cut off their angles."

With their new strategy, Meerstein and the Lions recorded eight blocks over the next two games. Meerstein led the way with five as the Lions took the games 35-33 and 30-21.

Meerstein finished out his weekend against George Mason on Saturday, recording 12 kills and 3 blocks. His .474 percentage on Saturday helps him creep closer to Kowal's nation-leading hitting percentage.