As the Penn State men's volleyball team treks to Newark, N.J., this weekend for the Golden Dome Classic, its offensive attack will feature a smorgasbord of weapons. Such was not always the case for the No. 5 Nittany Lions, who used to rely quite heavily upon their middles, Keith Kowal and Nate Meerstein, to rack up the points.

Penn State's opponents this weekend, Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne and Ohio State, need this news like they need a violently-spiked volleyball to the head -- and with the way the offense is functioning now, they just might get a few of those, as well.

Much to the chagrin of the Mastadons (5-4) and No. 12 Buckeyes (10-2), both of whom lost 3-1 to Penn State in January, the outside attack for the Lions has gotten stronger as the season has gone on. With opposite Matt Proper manning the right antenna, and sophomore outside hitters Alex Gutor and Aaron Smith attacking from the left, the Lions offense, directed by setter Dan O'Dell, is more potent and more difficult to defend than before.

"It's a big difference from last year," Kowal said. "Not only from Matt, but we're getting a lot of production out of Gutor and Smith at the pins."

That difference is noticeable -- not only by watching Penn State's matches, but also by looking at the team's statistics.

Last season Gutor, Proper and Smith averaged just more than seven kills per game between them. This year the trio has upped its production to 8.7 kills per game. Over the course of a five-game match (of which the Lions have played five already), that's an additional 8.5 kills for Penn State (10-2, 3-0 EIVA). And with junior outside hitter Kevin Wentzel preparing to return from injury, this just makes for more bad news for Penn State's opponents.

"Last year we ran middle every chance we could get, and the other teams caught up on that; they would send two or three blockers to the middle," Kowal said. "Now, with the production we're getting from the outside pins, that's freeing things up more in the middle."

Kowal and Meerstein's numbers in the kills and hitting-percentage categories are not as outrageously high as they were last year, but are still nothing to be concerned about from Penn State head coach Mark Pavlik's standpoint. Pavlik says the reasons for the fewer kills in the middle may be shorter games (thus, fewer opportunities) and Kowal's back injury.

Pavlik's game plan on Tuesday against Juniata, after all, was to set Kowal and Meerstein as much as possible, winning the match in the middle. When things didn't go as planned, the Lions had little trouble shifting the sets to the guys at the pins. Gutor wound up with 12 kills on 27 total attacks. Kowal and Meerstein, the would-be beneficiaries of the game plan, hit for their usual high percentages, but their combined total attacks (24) were fewer than Gutor's alone.